bank

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A piled-up mass, as of snow or clouds. See Synonyms at heap.
2. n. A steep natural incline.
3. n. An artificial embankment.
4. n. The slope of land adjoining a body of water, especially adjoining a river, lake, or channel. Often used in the plural.
5. n. A large elevated area of a sea floor. Often used in the plural.
6. n. Games The cushion of a billiard or pool table.
7. n. The lateral inward tilting, as of a motor vehicle or an aircraft, in turning or negotiating a curve.
8. v. To border or protect with a ridge or embankment.
9. v. To pile up; amass: banked earth along the wall.
10. v. To cover (a fire), as with ashes or fresh fuel, to ensure continued low burning.
11. v. To construct with a slope rising to the outside edge: The turns on the racetrack were steeply banked.
12. v. To tilt (an aircraft) laterally and inwardly in flight.
13. v. To tilt (a motor vehicle) laterally and inwardly when negotiating a curve.
14. v. Games To strike (a billiard ball) so that it rebounds from the cushion of the table.
15. 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.
16. v. To rise in or take the form of bank.
17. v. To tilt an aircraft or a motor vehicle laterally when turning.
18. n. A business establishment in which money is kept for saving or commercial purposes or is invested, supplied for loans, or exchanged.
19. n. The offices or building in which such an establishment is located.
20. n. Games The funds of a gambling establishment.
21. n. Games The funds held by a dealer or banker in some gambling games.
22. n. Games The reserve pieces, cards, chips, or play money in some games, such as poker, from which the players may draw.
23. n. A supply or stock for future or emergency use: a grain bank.
24. n. Medicine A supply of human tissues or other materials, such as blood, skin, or sperm, held in reserve for future use.
25. n. A place of safekeeping or storage: a computer's memory bank.
26. n. Obsolete A moneychanger's table or place of business.
27. v. To deposit in or as if in a bank.
28. v. To transact business with a bank or maintain a bank account.
29. v. To operate a bank.
30. bank on To have confidence in; rely on.
31. n. A set of similar or matched things arranged in a row, especially:
32. n. A set of elevators.
33. n. A row of keys on a keyboard.
34. n. Nautical A bench for rowers in a galley.
35. n. Nautical A row of oars in a galley.
36. n. Printing The lines of type under a headline.
37. v. To arrange or set up in a row: "Every street was banked with purple-blooming trees” ( Doris Lessing).

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A mound, pile, or ridge of earth raised above the surrounding plain; an artificial embankment, especially for military use.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. n. A bench or long seat; also, a stage or platform to speak from. See mountebank.
5. n. A bench in a galley for rowers; hence, the number of rowers seated on one bench A galley was double-banked when there were two tiers or rows of benches, one above the other, triple-banked when there were three tiers, and so on. In modern phraseology, a boat is single-banked when the oars are pulled each by one man, the men sitting one upon a seat and alternately on opposite sides of a boat; it is double-banked when two men sit upon one seat, each man with an oar. An oar is single-banked when worked by one man, and double-banked when worked by two men.
6. n. In law, the bench or seat upon which the judges sat. See banc.
7. n. A bench or row of keys in an organ or similar instrument.
8. n. In carpentry, a long piece of timber, especially of fir-wood unslit, from 4 to 10 inches square.
9. 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
10. n. In England, the whole or one end or side of a working-place under ground.
11. n. In Pennsylvania, a coal-working opened by water-level drifts.
12. n. In England (Cumberland), a large heap or stack of coal on the surface.
13. n. The support of the moving carriage of a printing-press.
14. n. In the fire-chamber of a glass-furnace, one of the banked-up parts which support the melting-pots.
15. n. In printing: The table used by a hand-pressman for his unprinted paper and his printed sheets.
16. 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.
17. n. In thread or yarn manufacture, a creel in which rows of bobbins are held.
18. To raise a mound or dike about; inclose, defend, or fortify with a bank; embank: as, to bank a river.
19. To form into a bank or heap; heap or pile: with up: as, to bank up the snow.
20. To lie around or encircle, as a bank; constitute a bank around; form a bank or border to; hem in as a bank.
21. To pass by the banks or fortifications of.
22. To border upon.
23. To impinge upon the banking-pins of a watch: said of the escapement.
24. n. A money-dealer's table, counter, or shop.
25. n. A sum of money, especially a sum to draw upon, as in a loan-bank.
26. 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.
27. n. An institution for receiving and lending money. The banking institutions of the United States may be classed as national and State banks, savings-banks, private banks or bankers, and loan and trust companies. National banks were first authorized by a law of the United States enacted in 1863, for a term of twenty years. In 1864 another act was adopted (allowing the like term of twenty years), which was thereafter known as the National Bank Act. In 1883 they were authorized to continue twenty years longer. They receive, lend, and transmit money, and issue notes which are used as money, and buy, sell, and collect bills of exchange. Their circulating notes are secured by United States bonds deposited with the government, and their operations are subject to the inspection and supervision of the Comptroller of the Currency. State banks perform the same functions except that of issuing notes. The notes of the State banks were taxed 10 per cent. by Congress in 1865, in order to cause their retirement, which was speedily accomplished. Private banks and bankers carry on the same business as State banks. Sometimes one person constitutes a private bank, but generally several persons associate together and form a partnership. Loan and trust companies are incorporated institutions, and receive deposits, usually for a fixed period, and loan them on the pledge of stocks, bonds, and other securities, while national and State banks lend largely on the promises of the borrowers; they have also a capital which is subscribed and paid by the stockholders. Savings-banks receive money and lend it chiefly on the security of real estate. See savings-bank. In Europe several great national banks are intimately associated with the fiscal departments of the governments of their respective countries, as the Bank of England and the Bank of France. Banks of issue are such as issue notes that circulate as currency. In London and for sixty-five miles around no bank having more than ten partners, save the Bank of England, is allowed to issue its own notes.
28. n. The office in which the transactions of a banking company are conducted.
29. 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.
30. To lay up on deposit in a bank: as, he banked $500.
31. n. In lumbering. Same as landing, 9.
32. n. A small pottery.
33. To fish on submarine banks, especially the Newfoundland Banks.
34. 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.

Wiktionary

1. n. A row or panel of items stored or grouped together.
2. n. A row of keys on a musical keyboard or the equivalent on a typewriter keyboard.
3. v. transitive, order and arrangement To arrange or order in a row.
4. n. An institution where one can place and borrow money and take care of financial affairs.
5. n. A branch office of such an institution
6. n. An underwriter or controller of a card game, also banque.
7. n. A safe and guaranteed place of storage for and retrieval of important items or goods.
8. v. intransitive To deal with a bank or financial institution.
9. v. transitive To put into a bank.
10. n. hydrology An edge of river, lake, or other watercourse.
11. n. nautical, hydrology 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).
12. n. geography A slope of earth, sand, etc.; an embankment.
13. n. aviation The incline of an aircraft, especially during a turn.
14. n. rail transport An incline, a hill.
15. n. A mass noun for a quantity of clouds.
16. v. intransitive, aviation To roll or incline laterally in order to turn.
17. v. transitive To cause (an aircraft) to bank.
18. v. transitive To form into a bank or heap, to bank up.
19. v. transitive To cover the embers of a fire with ashes in order to retain heat.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. A mound, pile, or ridge of earth, raised above the surrounding level; hence, anything shaped like a mound or ridge of earth.
2. n. A steep acclivity, as the slope of a hill, or the side of a ravine.
3. 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.
4. n. An elevation, or rising ground, under the sea; a shoal, shelf, or shallow.
5. n. The face of the coal at which miners are working.
6. n. A deposit of ore or coal, worked by excavations above water level.
7. n. The ground at the top of a shaft.
8. n. (Aëronautics) The lateral inclination of an aëroplane as it rounds a curve.
9. n. A group or series of objects arranged near together
10. 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.
11. v. To raise a mound or dike about; to inclose, defend, or fortify with a bank; to embank.
12. v. To heap or pile up.
13. v. obsolete To pass by the banks of.
14. v. (Engineering) 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.
15. n. A bench, as for rowers in a galley; also, a tier of oars.
16. n. The bench or seat upon which the judges sit.
17. 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.
18. n. (Printing) A sort of table used by printers.
19. n. (Music) A bench, or row of keys belonging to a keyboard, as in an organ.
20. 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.
21. n. The building or office used for banking purposes.
22. n. A fund to be used in transacting business, especially a joint stock or capital.
23. n. (Gaming) 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.
24. 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.
25. n. a place where something is stored and held available for future use an organization that stores biological products for medical needs.
26. v. To deposit in a bank.
27. v. To keep a bank; to carry on the business of a banker.
28. v. To deposit money in a bank; to have an account with a banker.
29. v. (Aëronautics) To tilt sidewise in rounding a curve; -- said of a flying machine, an aërocurve, or the like.

WordNet 3.0

1. v. enclose with a bank
2. n. a supply or stock held in reserve for future use (especially in emergencies)
3. v. tip laterally
4. n. an arrangement of similar objects in a row or in tiers
5. v. put into a bank account
6. n. a long ridge or pile
7. n. the funds held by a gambling house or the dealer in some gambling games
8. n. a building in which the business of banking transacted
9. v. act as the banker in a game or in gambling
10. v. have confidence or faith in
11. 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
12. n. sloping land (especially the slope beside a body of water)
13. v. do business with a bank or keep an account at a bank
14. v. cover with ashes so to control the rate of burning
15. n. a flight maneuver; aircraft tips laterally about its longitudinal axis (especially in turning)
16. n. a container (usually with a slot in the top) for keeping money at home
17. n. a financial institution that accepts deposits and channels the money into lending activities
18. v. be in the banking business