bank

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

• n. A piled-up mass, as of snow or clouds. See Synonyms at heap.
• n. A steep natural incline.
• n. An artificial embankment.
• n. The slope of land adjoining a body of water, especially adjoining a river, lake, or channel. Often used in the plural.
• n. A large elevated area of a sea floor. Often used in the plural.
• n. Games The cushion of a billiard or pool table.
• n. The lateral inward tilting, as of a motor vehicle or an aircraft, in turning or negotiating a curve.
• transitive v. To border or protect with a ridge or embankment.
• transitive v. To pile up; amass: banked earth along the wall.
• transitive v. To cover (a fire), as with ashes or fresh fuel, to ensure continued low burning.
• transitive v. To construct with a slope rising to the outside edge: The turns on the racetrack were steeply banked.
• transitive v. To tilt (an aircraft) laterally and inwardly in flight.
• transitive v. To tilt (a motor vehicle) laterally and inwardly when negotiating a curve.
• transitive v. Games To strike (a billiard ball) so that it rebounds from the cushion of the table.
• transitive v. Sports To play (a ball or puck) in such a way as to make it glance off a surface, such as a backboard or wall.
• intransitive v. To rise in or take the form of a bank.
• intransitive v. To tilt an aircraft or a motor vehicle laterally when turning.
• n. A business establishment in which money is kept for saving or commercial purposes or is invested, supplied for loans, or exchanged.
• n. The offices or building in which such an establishment is located.
• n. Games The funds of a gambling establishment.
• n. Games The funds held by a dealer or banker in some gambling games.
• n. Games The reserve pieces, cards, chips, or play money in some games, such as poker, from which the players may draw.
• n. A supply or stock for future or emergency use: a grain bank.
• n. Medicine A supply of human tissues or other materials, such as blood, skin, or sperm, held in reserve for future use.
• n. A place of safekeeping or storage: a computer's memory bank.
• n. Obsolete A moneychanger's table or place of business.
• transitive v. To deposit in or as if in a bank.
• intransitive v. To transact business with a bank or maintain a bank account.
• intransitive v. To operate a bank.
• bank on To have confidence in; rely on.
• n. A set of similar or matched things arranged in a row, especially:
• n. A set of elevators.
• n. A row of keys on a keyboard.
• n. Nautical A bench for rowers in a galley.
• n. Nautical A row of oars in a galley.
• n. Printing The lines of type under a headline.
• transitive v. To arrange or set up in a row: "Every street was banked with purple-blooming trees” ( Doris Lessing).

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

• n. An institution where one can place and borrow money and take care of financial affairs.
• n. A branch office of such an institution
• n. An underwriter or controller of a card game, also banque.
• n. A safe and guaranteed place of storage for and retrieval of important items or goods.
• v. To deal with a bank or financial institution.
• v. To put into a bank.
• n. An edge of river, lake, or other watercourse.
• n. 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).
• n. A slope of earth, sand, etc.; an embankment.
• n. The incline of an aircraft, especially during a turn.
• n. An incline, a hill.
• n. A mass noun for a quantity of clouds.
• v. To roll or incline laterally in order to turn.
• v. To cause (an aircraft) to bank.
• v. To form into a bank or heap, to bank up.
• v. To cover the embers of a fire with ashes in order to retain heat.
• n. A row or panel of items stored or grouped together.
• n. A row of keys on a musical keyboard or the equivalent on a typewriter keyboard.
• v. To arrange or order in a row.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English

• n. A mound, pile, or ridge of earth, raised above the surrounding level; hence, anything shaped like a mound or ridge of earth.
• n. A steep acclivity, as the slope of a hill, or the side of a ravine.
• n. The margin of a watercourse; the rising ground bordering a lake, river, or sea, or forming the edge of a cutting, or other hollow.
• n. An elevation, or rising ground, under the sea; a shoal, shelf, or shallow.
• n.
• n. The face of the coal at which miners are working.
• n. A deposit of ore or coal, worked by excavations above water level.
• n. The ground at the top of a shaft.
• n. The lateral inclination of an aëroplane as it rounds a curve.
• n. A group or series of objects arranged near together
• n. The tilt of a roadway or railroad, at a curve in the road, designed to counteract centrifugal forces acting on vehicles moving rapiudly around the curve, thus reducing the danger of overturning during a turn.
• n. A bench, as for rowers in a galley; also, a tier of oars.
• n.
• n. The bench or seat upon which the judges sit.
• n. 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.
• n. A sort of table used by printers.
• n. A bench, or row of keys belonging to a keyboard, as in an organ.
• n. An establishment for the custody, loan, exchange, or issue, of money, and for facilitating the transmission of funds by drafts or bills of exchange; an institution incorporated for performing one or more of such functions, or the stockholders (or their representatives, the directors), acting in their corporate capacity.
• n. The building or office used for banking purposes.
• n. A fund to be used in transacting business, especially a joint stock or capital.
• n. The sum of money or the checks which the dealer or banker has as a fund, from which to draw his stakes and pay his losses.
• n. In certain games, as dominos, a fund of pieces from which the players are allowed to draw; in Monopoly, the fund of money used to pay bonuses due to the players, or to which they pay fines.
• n. a place where something is stored and held available for future use
• intransitive v. To keep a bank; to carry on the business of a banker.
• intransitive v. To deposit money in a bank; to have an account with a banker.
• intransitive v. To tilt sidewise in rounding a curve; -- said of a flying machine, an aërocurve, or the like.
• transitive v. To raise a mound or dike about; to inclose, defend, or fortify with a bank; to embank.
• transitive v. To heap or pile up.
• transitive v. To pass by the banks of.
• transitive v. To build (a roadway or railroad) with an inclination at a curve in the road, so as to counteract centrifugal forces acting on vehicles moving rapiudly around the curve, thus reducing the danger of vehicles overturning at a curve.
• transitive v. To deposit in a bank.

from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

• To raise a mound or dike about; inclose, defend, or fortify with a bank; embank: as, to bank a river.
• To form into a bank or heap; heap or pile: with up: as, to bank up the snow.
• To lie around or encircle, as a bank; constitute a bank around; form a bank or border to; hem in as a bank.
• To pass by the banks or fortifications of.
• To border upon.
• To impinge upon the banking-pins of a watch: said of the escapement.
• To have an account with a banker; deposit money in a bank; transact business with a bank or as a bank; exercise the trade or profession of a banker.
• To lay up on deposit in a bank: as, he banked $500.
• To fish on submarine banks, especially the Newfoundland Banks.
• n. A mound, pile, or ridge of earth raised above the surrounding plain; an artificial embankment, especially for military use.
• n. Any steep acclivity, as one rising from a river, a lake, or the sea, or forming the side of a ravine, or the steep side of a hillock on a plain.
• n. An elevation or rising ground in the sea or the bed of a river, composed of sand or other soil, and either partly above water or covered everywhere with shoal water; a shoal; a shallow: as, the banks of Newfoundland; the Dogger bank in the North Sea.
• n. A bench or long seat; also, a stage or platform to speak from. See mountebank.
• n. A bench in a galley for rowers; hence, the number of rowers seated on one bench
• n. In law, the bench or seat upon which the judges sat. See banc.
• n. A bench or row of keys in an organ or similar instrument.
• n. In carpentry, a long piece of timber, especially of fir-wood unslit, from 4 to 10 inches square.
• n. In coal-mining: The surface around the mouth of a shaft: in this sense nearly synonymous with the Cornish grass, to bank being the same as to grass
• n. In England, the whole or one end or side of a working-place under ground.
• n. In Pennsylvania, a coal-working opened by water-level drifts.
• n. In England (Cumberland), a large heap or stack of coal on the surface.
• n. The support of the moving carriage of a printing-press.
• n. In the fire-chamber of a glass-furnace, one of the banked-up parts which support the melting-pots.
• n. In printing: The table used by a hand-pressman for his unprinted paper and his printed sheets.
• n. A frame, with sloping top, on which are placed the galleys for use in collecting and proving the type set: mainly used in newspaper composing-rooms.
• n. In thread or yarn manufacture, a creel in which rows of bobbins are held.
• n. A money-dealer's table, counter, or shop.
• n. A sum of money, especially a sum to draw upon, as in a loan-bank.
• n. In games of chance, the amount or pile which the proprietor of the gaming-table, or the person who plays against all the others, has before him; the funds of a gaming establishment; a fund in certain games at cards: as, a faro-bank.
• n. An institution for receiving and lending money.
• n. The office in which the transactions of a banking company are conducted.
• n. In lumbering. Same as landing, 9.
• n. A small pottery.
• n. In lumbering, the logs cut or skidded above the amount required in a day and held over by the saw-crew or skidders, to be reported when the daily quota is not reached.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• v. enclose with a bank
• n. a supply or stock held in reserve for future use (especially in emergencies)
• v. tip laterally
• n. an arrangement of similar objects in a row or in tiers
• v. put into a bank account
• n. a long ridge or pile
• n. the funds held by a gambling house or the dealer in some gambling games
• n. a building in which the business of banking transacted
• v. act as the banker in a game or in gambling
• v. have confidence or faith in
• n. 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
• n. sloping land (especially the slope beside a body of water)
• v. do business with a bank or keep an account at a bank
• v. cover with ashes so to control the rate of burning
• n. a flight maneuver; aircraft tips laterally about its longitudinal axis (especially in turning)
• n. a container (usually with a slot in the top) for keeping money at home
• n. a financial institution that accepts deposits and channels the money into lending activities
• v. be in the banking business