What does "bank" mean?
An institution where one can place and borrow money and take care of financial affairs.
Bank
/bæŋk/ name, noun, verb, slang
name, noun, verb, slang ·Top 500 ·Elementary level
Meaning at a glance
- Primary sense: An institution where one can place and borrow money and take care of financial affairs.
- Grammar: bank is listed as name, noun, verb, slang.
- Nearest alternatives: abatis, abutment, accumulation, advanced work.
- Useful contrasts: disbelieve, doubt, hockshop.
- Usage evidence: You can get a loan from a bank.
How to use "bank"
- Start with the primary definition, then check the part of speech before placing the word in a sentence.
- Compare nearby synonyms to make sure "bank" carries the exact meaning, tone, and strength you need.
- Use the example sentence as a context check. If your sentence uses the word differently, confirm that the grammar still fits.
Meaning check
- Does the word fit the sentence's grammar?
- Does it match the intended tone rather than only the dictionary definition?
- Would a simpler synonym be clearer for the reader?
- Is there enough surrounding context to prevent ambiguity?
Source and review context
This entry combines structured lexical data with WordToolSet review checks. Definitions, examples, synonyms, and usage notes may come from different source tables, so the page is designed to show evidence from more than one angle before you rely on "bank" in a final draft.
If a word has several senses, prefer the sense that matches your sentence's grammar and surrounding context. A correct definition can still be the wrong choice when the sentence needs a different register, emphasis, or level of specificity.
Before you rely on this definition
Read the first definition as a starting point, then check the example, synonyms, and part of speech before treating "bank" as the right word for your sentence.
If your draft is formal, technical, persuasive, or sensitive, compare "bank" with a nearby alternative so the final choice matches both meaning and reader expectation.
Compare nearby meanings
- Use synonyms when you need a softer, stronger, simpler, or more specific word.
- Use antonyms to check the boundary of the meaning and avoid accidental contrast.
- Use the example sentence to confirm the word behaves naturally in context.
- Keep the original wording when a replacement adds complexity without improving precision.
Definition decision workflow
1. Identify the role
Check whether "bank" is acting as name, noun, verb, slang in your sentence. A definition is only useful when the grammar matches the way the word is being used.
2. Test the nearest option
Compare it with "abatis" and other nearby choices to see whether the sentence needs a softer, stronger, or more familiar word.
3. Confirm with context
Use the example sentence below as an evidence check, then read your own sentence out loud to catch tone or rhythm problems.
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Final meaning check
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When the definition, synonym evidence, and example context point in the same direction, the word is usually a safer choice. When they conflict, revise the sentence or choose a clearer alternative.
Definitions
Noun
- 1 An institution where one can place and borrow money and take care of financial affairs. countable
"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”."
- 2 An edge of river, lake, or other watercourse.
"Tiber trembled underneath her banks."
- 3 A row or panel of items stored or grouped together.
"a bank of switches"
- 4 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."
- 5 a flight maneuver; aircraft tips laterally about its longitudinal axis (especially in turning) wordnet
Show 32 more definitions
- 6 A branch office of such an institution. countable
- 7 An elevation under the sea; a shallow area of shifting sand, gravel, mud, and so forth
"the banks of Newfoundland"
- 8 A row of keys on a musical keyboard or the equivalent on a typewriter keyboard.
- 9 A bench or seat for judges in court.
- 10 a building in which the business of banking is transacted wordnet
- 11 An underwriter or controller of a card game. countable
- 12 A slope of earth, sand, etc.; an embankment.
- 13 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.
- 14 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
- 15 a container (usually with a slot in the top) for keeping money at home wordnet
- 16 A fund from deposits or contributions, to be used in transacting business; a joint stock or capital. countable
"Let it be no bank or common stock, but every man be master of his own money."
- 17 The incline of an aircraft, especially during a turn.
- 18 A set of multiple adjacent drop targets.
- 19 A kind of table used by printers. archaic
- 20 a financial institution that accepts deposits and channels the money into lending activities wordnet
- 21 The sum of money etc. which the dealer or banker has as a fund from which to draw stakes and pay losses. countable
- 22 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."
- 23 A bench, or row of keys belonging to a keyboard, as in an organ.
- 24 an arrangement of similar objects in a row or in tiers wordnet
- 25 Money; profit. slang, uncountable
"Military dude was working for a drug dealer, right? and making good bank with it—he was making good money."
- 26 A mass of clouds.
"The bank of clouds on the horizon announced the arrival of the predicted storm front."
- 27 a long ridge or pile wordnet
- 28 In certain games, such as dominos, a fund of pieces from which the players are allowed to draw. countable
- 29 The face of the coal at which miners are working.
- 30 sloping land (especially the slope beside a body of water) wordnet
- 31 A safe and guaranteed place of storage for and retrieval of important items or goods. countable, in-compounds
"blood bank; data bank; sperm bank"
- 32 A deposit of ore or coal, worked by excavations above water level.
- 33 a slope in the turn of a road or track; the outside is higher than the inside in order to reduce the effects of centrifugal force wordnet
- 34 A device used to store coins or currency. countable
"If you want to buy a bicycle, you need to put the money in your piggy bank."
- 35 The ground at the top of a shaft.
"Ores are brought to bank."
- 36 the funds held by a gambling house or the dealer in some gambling games wordnet
- 37 a supply or stock held in reserve for future use (especially in emergencies) wordnet
Verb
- 1 To deal with a bank or financial institution, or for an institution to provide financial services to a client. intransitive
"He banked with Barclays."
- 2 To roll or incline laterally in order to turn. intransitive
- 3 To arrange or order in a row. transitive
- 4 have faith or confidence in wordnet
- 5 To put into a bank. transitive
"I’m going to bank the money."
Show 16 more definitions
- 6 To cause (an aircraft) to bank. transitive
- 7 cover with ashes so to control the rate of burning wordnet
- 8 To conceal in the rectum for use in prison. slang, transitive
"Johnny banked some coke for me."
- 9 To form into a bank or heap, to bank up. transitive
"to bank sand"
- 10 enclose with a bank wordnet
- 11 To provide banking services to. transitive
"They proposed an ambitious plan to bank people in remote rural communities."
- 12 To form a bank; to gather in masses. intransitive
"[…] clouds banking above the gravel road, their flat slate-blue bottoms threatening freezing rain or an early snowfall."
- 13 tip laterally wordnet
- 14 To cover the embers of a fire with ashes in order to retain heat. transitive
- 15 put into a bank account wordnet
- 16 To raise a mound or dike about; to enclose, defend, or fortify with a bank; to embank. transitive
"Aristoma∣chus would haue them to be stript from their leaues in winter, & in any hand to be banked well about, that the water stand not there in any hollow furrow or hole lower than the other ground"
- 17 be in the banking business wordnet
- 18 To pass by the banks of. obsolete, transitive
"Have I not heard these islanders shout out / Vive le roi! as I have banked their towns?"
- 19 act as the banker in a game or in gambling wordnet
- 20 To provide additional power for a train ascending a bank (incline) by attaching another locomotive. UK
"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."
- 21 do business with a bank or keep an account at a bank wordnet
Proper Noun
- 1 A village in the New Forest in Hampshire, England.
- 2 A surname.
- 3 A major London Underground station in the City of London, named after the Bank of England and one of the busiest stations on the network (OS grid ref TQ3281)
"Anybody familiar with the London Underground network will know that Bank Tube station is a place to be avoided - if at all possible - on a weekday morning. Located at the very heart of London's 'Square Mile' financial district, some 70,000 people detrain there during the morning peak, to pass through its gatelines and those at the adjoining station at Monument. A further 50,000 passengers squeeze into the station complex at exactly the same time of day, in order to change between the five lines that pass through it."
Synonyms
All synonymsAntonyms
Example
"You can get a loan from a bank."
Common questions
What is a synonym for "bank"?
Common synonyms include: abatis, abutment, accumulation, advanced work, align, anthill.
How do you use "bank" in a sentence?
You can get a loan from a bank.
How do you pronounce "bank"?
Pronounced /bæŋk/.
Etymology
Etymology 1
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *bʰeg-der. Proto-Germanic *bankiz Proto-West Germanic *banki Lombardic bankbor. Italian bancabor. Middle French banqueder. English bank 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).
Etymology 2
From Middle English bank, banke, from Old English *banca (“bench”) (attested in Old English hōbanca (“couch”) and Old English banc (“bank, hillock, embankment”), from Proto-West Germanic *bankō, from Proto-Germanic *bankô. Akin to Old Norse bakki (“elevation, hill”), Norwegian bakke (“slope, hill”).
Etymology 3
From Middle English bank, banke, from Old French banc (“bench”), from Frankish *banki, from Proto-Germanic *bankiz (“bench”). Akin to Old English benċ (“bench”).
Etymology 4
Probably from French banc. Of Germanic origin, and akin to English bench.
Etymology 5
From Old English banc (“bank, hillock, embankment”), from Proto-Germanic *bankô.
Etymology 6
Various origins: * Borrowed from Dutch and German Bank (“bench”), a metonymic occupational surname for someone who worked with a bench or counter, like a money changer. * Borrowed from Danish and Swedish Bank, a topographic surname from bank (“sandbank”) or, alternatively, a nickname for a loud an noisy person, from bank (“noise”).