1593: bank Apr 25, 2019

One might think of a bank—the institution, not the shore—today as intimidating or large, but this is not quite how it started out. While there has long been the notion of a bank as a place to deposit and keep things, such as in 'food-bank' or indeed sentiment on a riverbank, and this could include money, the word for the bank as an institution comes from the simple benches and tables that merchants, especially Italian ones used to conduct business. Indeed, while the 'riverbank' and the financial 'bank' has separate but related etymologies, the same can be said for 'bank' and 'bench'.
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