Definition
nounAn institution where one can place and borrow money and take care of financial affairs.
nounA branch office of such an institution.
Sentence Examples
You can get a loan from a bank.
You can bank on that.
I don't have much money in the bank at the end of the month.
Word Origin & History
Etymology tree
Proto-Indo-European *bʰeg-der.
Proto-Germanic *bankiz
Proto-West Germanic *banki
Lombardic bankbor.
Italian bancabor.
Middle French banqueder.
English bank
Inherited 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, banc, and banco.
For the bench-bank relation, compare typologically Russian ла́вка (lávka), прила́вок (prilávok).
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"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 June 1, “End of the peer show”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8838, page 71:
"Let it be no bank or common stock, but every man be master of his own money."
— 1625, Francis [Bacon], “Of Usury”, in The Essayes […], 3rd edition, London: […] Iohn Haviland for Hanna Barret, →OCLC:
"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:
"the sort of face you would happily bank with"
— 1979, Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
"Tiber trembled underneath her banks."
— 1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Iulius Cæsar”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i]: