bank [ME] The very different uses of bank are all ultimately related. The bank beside a river was adopted from a Scandinavian word in the early Middle Ages, and is related to bench [OE]. The earliest use of the bank for a financial institution referred to a money-dealer’s counter or table. This came from French or Italian in the late 15th century, but goes back to the same root as the river bank. A bank of oars or of lights represents yet another related form. It came into English in the early Middle Ages from French, and originally meant a bench or a platform to speak from. The bench or platform sense is also found in mountebank [M16th] for a charlatan, which comes from Italian monta in banco ‘climb on the bench’ referring to the way they attracted a crowd, while a bankrupt [M16th], originally a bankrout, takes us back to the ‘counter’ sense. It is from Italian banca rotta, which really means ‘a broken bench’, referring to the breaking up of the traders business at the counter. The word was altered early on in its history in English, through association with Latin ruptus ‘broken’. Yet another word from the same source is banquet [LME] which comes from the French for ‘little bench’ and was originally a snack rather than a lavish meal. A banquette [E17th] was originally a raised way inside a rampart, only becoming an upholstered bench in the mid 19th century.