Question

bas-relief noun The best way to understand the meaning of bas-relief is to see one—and the easiest way to do that is to look at a penny, nickel, or other coin and examine the raised images on it; they're all bas-reliefs. English speakers adopted bas-relief from French (where bas means "low" and relief means "raised work") during the mid-1600s; earlier, we borrowed the synonymous basso-relievo from Italian. The French and Italian terms have common ancestors (and, in fact, the French word is likely a translation of the Italian), but English speakers apparently borrowed the two independently. Bas-relief is more prevalent in English today, although the Italian-derived term has not disappeared completely from the language. art : sculptural relief in which the projection from the surrounding surface is slight and no part of the modeled form is undercut; also : sculpture executed in bas-relief

Accepted Answer

September 8, 2019 bah-rih-LEEF "Three [works] that caught my eye were Maksymowicz's solemn plaster bas-relief of bones and tools, Gina Michaels' bronze sculpture of a prickly pear cactus with pads in the shapes of human feet, and Burnell Yow's totemic found-object sculpture topped with an animal skull." — Edith Newhall, The Philadelphia Inquirer, 18 July 2019"Lorraine Hansberry's 60-year-old American classic about a black family in Chicago's South Side in the 1950s that has a shot at the American dream is given a volatile production that, like a bas-relief, brings out details and layers that have not been so clearly defined in more traditional approaches." — The Berkshire Eagle (Pittsfield, Massachusetts), 5 July 2019

Word	bas-relief
Date	September 8, 2019
Type	noun
Syllables	bah-rih-LEEF
Etymology	The best way to understand the meaning of bas-relief is to see one—and the easiest way to do that is to look at a penny, nickel, or other coin and examine the raised images on it; they're all bas-reliefs. English speakers adopted bas-relief from French (where bas means "low" and relief means "raised work") during the mid-1600s; earlier, we borrowed the synonymous basso-relievo from Italian. The French and Italian terms have common ancestors (and, in fact, the French word is likely a translation of the Italian), but English speakers apparently borrowed the two independently. Bas-relief is more prevalent in English today, although the Italian-derived term has not disappeared completely from the language.
Examples	"Three [works] that caught my eye were Maksymowicz's solemn plaster bas-relief of bones and tools, Gina Michaels' bronze sculpture of a prickly pear cactus with pads in the shapes of human feet, and Burnell Yow's totemic found-object sculpture topped with an animal skull." — Edith Newhall, The Philadelphia Inquirer, 18 July 2019 "Lorraine Hansberry's 60-year-old American classic about a black family in Chicago's South Side in the 1950s that has a shot at the American dream is given a volatile production that, like a bas-relief, brings out details and layers that have not been so clearly defined in more traditional approaches." — The Berkshire Eagle (Pittsfield, Massachusetts), 5 July 2019
Definition	art : sculptural relief in which the projection from the surrounding surface is slight and no part of the modeled form is undercut; also : sculpture executed in bas-relief

Bas Relief English French Sculpture Speakers Means Relief Borrowed