bank

Etymology 1

From Middle English banke, from Middle French banque, from Italian banca (“counter, moneychanger's bench or table”), from Lombardic bank (“bench, counter”), from Proto-West Germanic *banki, from Proto-Germanic *bankiz (“bench, counter”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰeg- (“to turn, curve, bend, bow”). Doublet of bench and banc.

noun

1. (countable) An institution where one can place and borrow money and take care of financial affairs.
   Finance is seldom romantic. But the idea of peer-to-peer lending comes close. This is an industry that brings together individual savers and lenders on online platforms.[…]Banks and credit-card firms are kept out of the picture. Talk to enough people in the field and someone is bound to mention the “democratisation of finance”. 2013-06-01, “End of the peer show”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8838, page 71
2. (countable) A branch office of such an institution.
3. (countable) An underwriter or controller of a card game.
4. (countable) A fund from deposits or contributions, to be used in transacting business; a joint stock or capital.
5. (gambling, countable) The sum of money etc. which the dealer or banker has as a fund from which to draw stakes and pay losses.
6. (slang, uncountable) Money; profit.
   Military dude was working for a drug dealer, right? and making good bank with it—he was making good money. 2010, Paul Bouchard, Enlistment, page 113
7. (countable) In certain games, such as dominos, a fund of pieces from which the players are allowed to draw.
8. (countable, chiefly in combination) A safe and guaranteed place of storage for and retrieval of important items or goods.
   blood bank; sperm bank; data bank
9. (countable) A device used to store coins or currency.
   If you want to buy a bicycle, you need to put the money in your piggy bank.

verb

1. (intransitive) To deal with a bank or financial institution, or for an institution to provide financial services to a client.
   He banked with Barclays.
   the sort of face you would happily bank with 1979, Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
2. (transitive) To put into a bank.
   I'm going to bank the money.
3. (transitive, slang) To conceal in the rectum for use in prison.
   Johnny banked some coke for me.

Etymology 2

From Middle English bank, from Old English hōbanca (“couch”) and Old English banc (“bank, hillock, embankment”), from Proto-Germanic *bankô. Akin to Old Norse bakki (“elevation, hill”), Norwegian bakke (“slope, hill”).

noun

1. (hydrology) An edge of river, lake, or other watercourse.
   On the opposite bank of the river other Chinese units attacked Taoshih and Yunmeng north-west of Hankow. June 8, 1943, “Jap Remnants Suffer Heavy Casualties: Alerts In Chungking”, in The Bombay Chronicle, volume XXXI, number 134, page 1
   Just upstream of Dryburgh Abbey, a reproduction of a classical Greek temple stands at the top of a wooded hillock on the river’s north bank. 16 September 2014, Ian Jack, “Is this the end of Britishness”, in The Guardian
2. (nautical, hydrology) An elevation, or rising ground, under the sea; a shallow area of shifting sand, gravel, mud, and so forth (for example, a sandbank or mudbank).
   the banks of Newfoundland
3. (geography) A slope of earth, sand, etc.; an embankment.
4. (aviation) The incline of an aircraft, especially during a turn.
5. (rail transport) An incline, a hill.
   This is the hardest duty on the railway, for the trains are heavy and there are some long 1 in 40 banks. 1940 December, O. S. M. Raw, “The Rhodesia Railways—II”, in Railway Magazine, page 640
6. A mass noun for a quantity of clouds.
   The bank of clouds on the horizon announced the arrival of the predicted storm front.
7. (mining) The face of the coal at which miners are working.
8. (mining) A deposit of ore or coal, worked by excavations above water level.
9. (mining) The ground at the top of a shaft.
   Ores are brought to bank.

verb

1. (intransitive, aviation) To roll or incline laterally in order to turn.
2. (transitive) To cause (an aircraft) to bank.
3. (transitive) To form into a bank or heap, to bank up.
   to bank sand
4. (transitive) To cover the embers of a fire with ashes in order to retain heat.
5. (transitive) To raise a mound or dike about; to enclose, defend, or fortify with a bank; to embank.
6. (transitive, obsolete) To pass by the banks of.
   Have I not heard these islanders shout out / Vive le roi! as I have banked their towns? c. 1595, William Shakespeare, King John, act 5, scene 2
7. (rail transport, UK) To provide additional power for a train ascending a bank (incline) by attaching another locomotive.
   Some interesting facts have recently been made known by the L.N.E.R. concerning the 178-ton Garratt 2-8-0 + 0-8-2 engine No. 2395, which since construction in 1925 has spent the whole of its working life banking coal trains up the 3 miles of 1 in 40 between Wentworth junction and West Silkstone, on the Worsborough branch, near Barnsley. 1942 March, “Notes and News: Locomotive Notes”, in Railway Magazine, page 93
   … the 4-4-0 unhappily stalled after a stop on Reading Old Bank with its eight-coach load and the Reading Up Line pilot, a "Hall", had to bank the train into Reading General. 1960 July, “Motive Power Miscellany: Western Region”, in Trains Illustrated, page 443
   Soon after leaving Bebra the line rises, mostly at 1 in 74, for 7 miles to Cornberg and all trains of over 400 tons are banked. 1960 September, P. Ransome-Wallis, “Modern motive power of the German Federal Railway: Part One”, in Trains Ilustrated, page 558

Etymology 3

From Middle English bank (“bank”), banke, from Old French banc (“bench”), from Frankish *bank. Akin to Old English benc (“bench”).

noun

1. A row or panel of items stored or grouped together.
   a bank of switches
   a bank of pay phones
   Wanderers were finally woken from their slumber when Kevin Davies brought a fine save out of Brad Guzan while, minutes after the restart, Klasnic was blocked out by a bank of Villa defenders. December 10, 2011, Marc Higginson, “Bolton 1 - 2 Aston Villa”, in BBC Sport
2. A row of keys on a musical keyboard or the equivalent on a typewriter keyboard.
3. (computing) A contiguous block of memory that is of fixed, hardware-dependent size, but often larger than a page and partitioning the memory such that two distinct banks do not overlap.
4. (pinball) A set of multiple adjacent drop targets.

verb

1. (transitive, order and arrangement) To arrange or order in a row.

Etymology 4

Probably from French banc. Of Germanic origin, and akin to English bench.

noun

1. A bench, as for rowers in a galley; also, a tier of oars.
   Placed on their banks, the lusty Trojans sweep / Neptune's smooth face, and cleave the yielding deep. 1658, Edmund Waller, he Passion of Dido for Æneas
2. A bench or seat for judges in court.
3. The regular term of a court of law, or the full court sitting to hear arguments upon questions of law, as distinguished from a sitting at nisi prius, or a court held for jury trials. See banc
4. (archaic, printing) A kind of table used by printers.
5. (music) A bench, or row of keys belonging to a keyboard, as in an organ.