To bask in something is to take it in, receive its warmth, or bathe in its goodness. On the first warm day of the spring, you may bask in the sunshine. When you win the Pulitzer, you bask in your own glory.

In Shakespeare’s “As You Like It,” Jaques says: “…As I do live by food, I met a fool; Who laid him down and bask’d him in the sun,; And rail’d on Lady Fortune in good terms…” That was most likely the first time bask was used in the way that we most often use it now: to bask is to warm yourself, either literally or figuratively, in the glow of the sun, good fortune, happiness, or a job well done.