Definition of "bason"

To proceed therefore, put a looking-glass into a bason of water; I suppose you shall not see the image in a right line, or at equal angles, but aside.

1631, Francis [Bacon], “(please specify |century=I to X)”, in Sylua Syluarum: Or A Naturall Historie. In Ten Centuries. […], 3rd edition, London: […] William Rawley; [p]rinted by J[ohn] H[aviland] for William Lee […]

“Sure, my dear Sir Thomas, a bason of soup would be a much better thing for you than tea. Do have a bason of soup.”

1814 July, [Jane Austen], chapter I, in Mansfield Park: […], volume II, London: […] T[homas] Egerton, […], page 13

Not a moment could be lost: the very sheets were kindling. I rushed to his bason and ewer; fortunately, one was wide and the other deep, and both were filled with water.

1847 October 16, Currer Bell [pseudonym; Charlotte Brontë], chapter XV, in Jane Eyre. An Autobiography. […], volume I, London: Smith, Elder, and Co., […], page 297

[...] on July 16, 1790, a public meeting [...] unanimously approved of a scheme for making the River Soar navigable from Leicester to Loughborough, and "a cut or rail-way from Swannington and the neighbourhood to the bason at Loughborough."

1939 July, Charles E. Lee, “Swannington: One-Time Railway Centre”, in Railway Magazine, page 3