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basta
[ bah-stah ]
interjection
- enough; stop.
Example Sentences
The screenplay for “Eephus” emerged from the collaboration with childhood friend Michael Basta, part of the independent film collective Omnes Films with Lund, and Nate Fisher, with whom Lund first became acquainted while attending screenings at the Harvard Film Archive.
“Carson knew the game play, Nate knows fun, weird, trivial parts of baseball and I had the off-the-field stuff,” says Basta via Zoom.
So much so that even when Rihab’s father, a retired Lebanese army sergeant, found a rental apartment in the Basta neighbourhood just for the four of them, the girls did not want to go.
So on the way home they stopped for rotisserie chicken and other treats from the shop, and at about 7.30pm, with the streets still alive with people, the family pulled up to a rundown building in Basta in central Beirut.
Unlike Saeed's parents' house, the new Basta apartment had running water and a generator for electricity.
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More About Basta
What does basta mean?
Basta is an Italian and Spanish word meaning “Stop!” or “That’s enough!”
Where does basta come from?
Basta is the imperative form of the Italian verb bastare, “to stop.” It’s a forceful way to command: That’s enough! Both the Spanish and Italian basta are based in Latin.
The term is evidenced in English as early as 1616, when Shakespeare used it in his Padua-set Taming of the Shrew: “Basta, content thee.”
Two hundred years later, basta came onto the stage again, this time during the 2016 presidential election. Speaking to Latino voters, Hillary Clinton told her opponent, Donald Trump, to basta in regard to harsh immigration policies.
In 2018, attorney Michael Avenatti, representing adult-film actress Stormy Daniels in her lawsuit against Donald Trump, frequently hashtagged Twitter posts against Trump with #Basta.
How is basta used in real life?
Basta is used as an imperative and interjection. Exclaiming Basta! conveys you’re fed up with a person or situation and need it to stop.
Be mindful that it can come across as sassy or rude, not unlike the English “Shut up!”
Basta is proudly used by people of Spanish or Italian heritage.
¡Basta! Is Spanish (also Italian) for "enough" and I think the emoji for it should be a flying chancla (shoe). 😉
— 𝓖𝔀𝓮𝓷𝓦𝓸𝓵𝓯𝓻𝓸𝓼𝓮 🏴☠️ (@BeeotchGoddess)
More examples of basta:
“‘I was the first one to call [Trump] out. When he was engaging in rhetoric that I found deeply offensive I said ‘basta,’” Clinton said to cheers and laughter from the bilingual crowd at Miami Dade College.”
—Hillary Clinton quoted by Greg Robb, Market Watch, March 2016
Note
This content is not meant to be a formal definition of this term. Rather, it is an informal summary that seeks to provide supplemental information and context important to know or keep in mind about the term’s history, meaning, and usage.
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