bank

Meanings

Noun

• An institution where one can place and borrow money and take care of financial affairs.
• A branch office of such an institution.
• An underwriter or controller of a card game.
• A fund from deposits or contributions, to be used in transacting business; a joint stock or capital.
• The sum of money etc. which the dealer or banker has as a fund from which to draw stakes and pay losses.
• Money; profit.
• In certain games, such as dominos, a fund of pieces from which the players are allowed to draw.
• A safe and guaranteed place of storage for and retrieval of important items or goods.
• A device used to store coins or currency.
• An edge of river, lake, or other watercourse.
• 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).
• A slope of earth, sand, etc.; an embankment.
• The incline of an aircraft, especially during a turn.
• An incline, a hill.
• A mass noun for a quantity of clouds.
• The face of the coal at which miners are working.
• A deposit of ore or coal, worked by excavations above water level.
• The ground at the top of a shaft.
• A row or panel of items stored or grouped together.
• A row of keys on a musical keyboard or the equivalent on a typewriter keyboard.
• 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.
• A set of multiple adjacent drop targets.
• A bench, as for rowers in a galley; also, a tier of oars.
• A bench or seat for judges in court.
• 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
• A kind of table used by printers.
• A bench, or row of keys belonging to a keyboard, as in an organ.
• slang for money

Verb

• To deal with a bank or financial institution, or for an institution to provide financial services to a client.
• To put into a bank.
• To conceal in the rectum for use in prison.
• To roll or incline laterally in order to turn.
• To cause (an aircraft) to bank.
• To form into a bank or heap, to bank up.
• To cover the embers of a fire with ashes in order to retain heat.
• To raise a mound or dike about; to enclose, defend, or fortify with a bank; to embank.
• To pass by the banks of.
• To provide additional power for a train ascending a bank (incline) by attaching another locomotive.
• To arrange or order in a row.

Related

Similar words

• (row) line, rank, tier; (panel) block, grid, panel

Origin

• From Middle English banke, from Middle French banque, from Old Italian banca, from Langobardic bank, from Proto-West Germanic *banki, from Proto-Germanic *bankiz, from Proto-Indo-European *bʰeg-. bench, and banc.
• 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").
• From Middle English bank, banke, from Old French banc, from Frankish *bank. Akin to Old English benc.
• Probably from French banc. Of Germanic origin, and akin to English bench.