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banker

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Pronunciation

  • UK: /ˈbæŋkə/[1]
  • US: /ˈbæŋkɚ/[1]

banker1 person who runs a bank

Etymology

The OED explains it as partly from English bank + -er, formed on the money sense of bank after the French word, and partly borrowed from Middle French banquier,[2] from Italian banchiere (13th century), from banco (“bench, market stall, counter”) or banca.[2][3] Etymonline also treats it as an English agent noun from bank, possibly modelled on French banquier,[4] while Merriam-Webster, the Shorter Oxford and Dictionary.com derive it from the French word.[3][5][6] The Shorter Oxford compares the Anglo-Latin bancarius.[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

A money changer, especially one who bought and sold foreign coin: 1484, in Caxton's translation of Aesop's Fables; this sense lasted until 1683.[2][7]

Semantic evolution

Before banks in the modern sense, the banker was a money changer and then, from ?1526, a moneylender.[2] Etymonline dates the word to the 1530s,[4] Merriam-Webster gives 1529,[3] and Dictionary.com 1525–35.[6] The modern sense, a person who owns or manages a bank, appears in a statute of 1670–1;[2][7] Johnson (1755) defined a banker as one who traffics in money, quoting Dryden on “the Lombard bankers”.[8] In gambling the banker has been the player or keeper who holds the bank since 1706, in Susanna Centlivre's Basset-Table,[2][7] and a card game called banker is recorded from 1874.[2] In British football pools a banker was a result thought certain, from 1938,[2] and Green's Dictionary of Slang records the general sense of a sure thing.[9] In underworld slang a banker is a respectable-looking person who holds a thief's or drug dealer's money, a use Green's records in the United States from 1911.[9]

Timeline

  • 1484 – a money changer (obsolete by 1683).[2]
  • ?1526 – a moneylender.[2]
  • 1529 – Merriam-Webster's date for the first sense.[3]
  • 1670 – a person who owns or manages a bank.[2]
  • 1706 – the keeper of the bank in a gambling game.[2]
  • 1874 – a card game.[2]
  • 1911 – slang: a person who holds criminals' money.[9]
  • 1938 – football pools: a result forecast as certain.[2]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. A person who owns or manages a bank, or who works in banking at a senior level: Several bankers were questioned about the loans.
  2. In gambling games, the player or official who holds the bank and pays out winnings.
  3. (British, informal) A result or person thought to be a certainty, especially in a forecast or bet.

Word family

  • merchant banker
  • banking

banker2 worker on banks; flooded river

Etymology

This word was formed in English, probably from English bank + -er, partly from the noun bank (of earth, a river or the sea) and partly from the verb.[2][5] The fishing senses refer to the Grand Banks off Newfoundland, fished by European expeditions since at least the 16th century.[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

A labourer who makes or repairs banks, ditches or canals: a1627, in Middleton and Rowley's The Changeling.[2][7] The OED also records a slang banker in 1591, a bowls player who cheats to help an accomplice win bets, but notes that this may be a different word.[2]

Semantic evolution

The labourer sense survived in English dialect: Wright's Dialect Dictionary records banker for a navvy or ditch-digger in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire.[10][2] From 1654 the word named a boat fishing on the Newfoundland banks; a fisherman on such a boat followed in 1861, both are now historical.[2][5] In Australian and New Zealand English a banker is a river swollen to the top of its banks, as in to run a banker, from 1848,[2][10] and on the railways it has been an extra engine that helps a train up an incline since 1852.[2][5] A horse able to jump on and off banks too high to clear in one leap has been called a banker since 1885.[2]

Timeline

  • a1627 – a labourer who makes banks or ditches.[2]
  • 1654 – a boat fishing on the Newfoundland banks.[2]
  • 1848 – Australia and New Zealand: a river in flood to the top of its banks.[2]
  • 1852 – an extra locomotive for climbing an incline.[2]
  • 1861 – a fisherman on the Newfoundland banks.[2]
  • 1885 – a horse that jumps on and off banks.[2]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. (Australia, New Zealand, informal) A river or creek flooded up to or over its banks: After the storm the creek was running a banker.
  2. A locomotive that helps push or pull a train up a steep gradient.
  3. (historical) A ship or fisherman engaged in cod fishing on the Newfoundland banks.
  4. (dialect) A labourer who digs ditches or builds earth banks.

banker3 mason's workbench

Etymology

It is apparently from English bank + -er, from bank in its old sense of a bench,[2][5] and the Shorter Oxford suggests it may be an alteration of banco (“a sculptor's bench”).[5] An older banker, a covering for a bench, borrowed from Anglo-Norman in the 14th century, comes from the same word for a bench.[2][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

A bricklayer's, mason's or sculptor's workbench on which bricks are cut or stone is dressed: 1700, in Moxon's Mechanick Exercises.[2][7]

Semantic evolution

The workbench sense was widespread in dialect: Wright's Dialect Dictionary records it in Scotland, Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, Somerset and Cornwall.[10] In Dorset a banker was also a stack of quarried Purbeck stone on the shore at Swanage, waiting to be shipped, from 1853.[2]

Timeline

  • 1700 – a mason's or bricklayer's workbench.[2]
  • 1853 – Dorset: a stack of quarried stone on the shore.[2]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. A workbench on which a mason dresses stone or a sculptor models.

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  4. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  7. ^ a b c d e Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
  8. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  9. ^ a b c Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
  10. ^ a b c Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)