A filter has a countable basis iff it is generated by a countable collection of subsets of α. (A filter is a generated by a collection of sets iff it is the infimum of the principal filters.)
Note: we do not require the collection to be closed under finite intersections.
Different characterization of countable basis. A filter has a countable basis iff it is generated by a sequence of sets.
Different characterization of countable basis. A filter has a countable basis iff it is generated by a monotonically decreasing sequence of sets.
A topological basis is one that satisfies the necessary conditions so that it suffices to take unions of the basis sets to get a topology (without taking finite intersections as well).
A separable space is one with a countable dense subset.
A first-countable space is one in which every point has a countable neighborhood basis.
A second-countable space is one with a countable basis.