base station

noun

: a transmitter that relays a wireless signal (as from a telephone line or Internet connection) to a smaller handheld device usually using radio frequencies

Cordless telephones come in two parts, a base station and a handset, that communicate by radio waves.

—Peter Kerr, New York Times, 12 Feb. 1983

The tablet, which weighs less than 3 pounds, ranges 150 feet from its base station and receives data at speeds of 1.5 megabytes per second with DSL or broadband cable service.

—Popular Science, January 2001

Word History

First Known Use

1920, in the meaning defined above

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