Basal is the bottom, the foundation. When you are basing your decision off of the facts, you are using the most basic information available.
The basal layer of the skin is the most sensitive.
The basal metabolism is the slowest of all the metabolic rates.
adjective
especially of leaves; located at the base of a plant or stem; especially arising directly from the root or rootstock or a root-like stem
Synonyms:
adjective
serving as or forming a base
Synonyms:
adjective
of or being the essential or basic part
Synonyms:
1
The leaves grow in a dense basal clump at the ground.
2
In the more basal teleosts the pharyngeal jaws consist of well - separated thin parts that attach to the neurocranium, pectoral girdle, and hyoid bar.
3
Although aetosaurs are known exclusively from the Late Triassic, their currently accepted position in archosaur phylogeny indicates that they originated from more basal pseudosuchian archosaurs in the Early or Middle Triassic.
4
The fruit bodies of A. ravenelii are distinguished from A. chlorinosma by the presence of pale yellow to brownish orange, large, conical to truncate - conical warts on the cap surface and a large basal bulb.
5
Tyrannosaurid remains have never been recovered from eastern North America, while more basal tyrannosauroids, like Dryptosaurus and Appalachiosaurus, persisted there until the end of the Cretaceous, indicating that tyrannosaurids must have evolved in or dispersed into western North America after the continent was divided in half by the Western Interior Seaway in the middle of the Cretaceous.
6
The striatum is the main element of the basal ganglia system.
7
The disease was found in the basal cells.
8
It belongs among the basal lineages of the angiosperms.
9
The frass is concentrated in the basal part of the blotch.
10
They are infundibular in the basal third and globose above.
11
Genetic evidence suggests that the water rail is the most closely related of its genus to the Pacific Gallirallus rails, and is basal to that group.
12
The origin of Stegosaurus is uncertain, as few remains of basal stegosaurs and their ancestors are known.
13
They control the dopaminergic modulation of the basal ganglia.
14
These disorders are typically related to damage to the cerebral white matter and basal ganglia.
15
Acetylcholine is known to promote wakefulness in the basal forebrain.
16
Among the first and most basal of the eucynodonts was Cynognathus.
17
I noticed your displeasure with the reversion in the basal ganglia article.