Meaning

noun strong woody fibers obtained especially from the phloem of from various plants

noun (botany) tissue that conducts synthesized food substances (e.g., from leaves) to parts where needed; consists primarily of sieve tubes

noun cat- or lion-headed Egyptian goddess; represents life-giving power of the sun

originFrom Middle English bast, from Old English bæst (“bast, inner bark of trees from which ropes were made”), from Proto-West Germanic *bast (compare the Swedish bast, Dutch bast, German Bast), perhaps an alteration of Proto-Indo-European *bʰask-, *bʰasḱ- (“bundle”) (compare Middle Irish basc (“necklace”), Latin fascis (“bundle”), Albanian bashkë (“tied, linked”)).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0