banco

Forms

banco m (plural bancos)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Proto-Germanic *bankiz (“bench”), a Germanic word that Vulgar Latin had already taken over throughout the Western Empire.^[2][3][4] The DLE and Wiktionary name Old French bank as the source,^[5][1] and Nocentini derives the Romance words from Frankish *bank.^[6] Corominas sees proof of the great age of the loan in the derivative Medieval Latin bancale, which already appears in Latin glosses.^[2]

The Germanic word is also Old High German banc and the English word bench.^[7][1] Kroonen usually connects it with *bankan- (“slope, cliff”), perhaps through a sense “elevation”, and Wiktionary traces it to Proto-Indo-European *bʰeg- (“to bend, curve”).^[7][1] The same word is Portuguese banco, Catalan banc and French banc.^[8][6]

The sense “bank, credit institution” was taken from Italian banco in the 16th century.^[2][3] In Italian it first meant a counter for selling goods (1303); the modern sense appears there in 1340, perhaps under the influence of Ancient Greek τράπεζα (trápeza, “table”), which already meant a bank in antiquity, and spread from Italy to all the European languages.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas's first record is the Libro de Alexandre (1240–1250, in an early 15th-century copy), where all the sailors climb onto the bancos, the rowing benches, to look further out to sea.^[2][9] A donation charter of 1260 forbids anyone to have a butcher's shop or bancos “stalls” in the town for selling meat.^[9]

Semantic evolution

Nebrija's Latin–Spanish dictionary (1492) has the bench of a galley, a money-changer's table and a bench by the bed,^[10] and Palencia's vocabulary of 1490 the benches where galley slaves sit to row.^[11] The financial sense is recorded in 1504;^[12] Bartolomé de Albornoz still felt it as a foreign word, but in Isaba (1594) and a law of 1602 it is used as Castilian.^[2] Covarrubias in 1611 says that banco sometimes means the money-changer himself, named after the bench where he sits to take and pay out money, and mentions a street in Rome called Bancos for the bankers living there.^[12]

The Diccionario de Autoridades describes the long wooden seat with or without a back.^[13] The Academy's 1884 edition derives it from Old High German banc and panc and lists the rowers' bench, the workbench of carpenters and smiths and the money-changers' table.^[14] Modern senses add a sandbank or shoal, a school of fish, a blood or eye bank, a thick geological stratum and, in Venezuela, a wooded rise in the plains.^[5]

Timeline

• 1240–1250 – the Libro de Alexandre has bancos “rowing benches” (in an early 15th-century copy).^[2][9]
• 1260 – a donation charter uses bancos for market stalls.^[9]
• 1330 – the derivative bancal “cloth for covering a bench” appears, in an Aragonese inventory.^[2]
• 1504 – the sense “bank”, from Italian, is first recorded.^[2][3]
• 1515 – a first record from the Americas, in Puerto Rico: a large table with its benches.^[15]
• 1529 – banquero “banker” is first recorded.^[3][2]
• 1611 – Covarrubias explains banco “money-changer” by the bench he sits on.^[12]
• 1617 – bancarrota, from Italian banca rotta “broken bench”, in Minsheu.^[2]
• 1884 – the Academy derives the word from Old High German.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. A bench: a seat, with or without a back, for two or more people; a pew.^[5][1]
2. A thick squared beam on four legs used as a table by carpenters and other craftsmen: a workbench.^[5]
3. A long shoal in a sea, river or navigable lake: El barco encalló en un banco de arena.^[5]
4. A large group of fish swimming together: a school.^[5][1]
5. A company that carries out financial operations with its shareholders' money and its customers' deposits: a bank.^[5][1]
6. A medical establishment that stores organs, tissues or body fluids for surgery or research: banco de sangre “blood bank”.^[5]
7. (architecture) An attic storey (sotabanco); the base of an altarpiece.^[5]
8. (geology) A very thick stratum.^[5]
9. (Venezuela) A stretch of higher ground with trees rising above the plain.^[5]

Word family

• bancario
• banquero
• desbancar
• asaltabancos
• autobanco
• robabancos
• banqueta
• bancal
• embancarse

Related words

• banca
• banquillo
• bancarrota
• banquete
• Italian banco
• English bench

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 485
3. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. banco
4. ^ Coromines, Joan (1980–2001), Diccionari etimològic i complementari de la llengua catalana, 10 vols., Barcelona: Curial / La Caixa (online ed., Institut d'Estudis Catalans 2024), p. 1, 616
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. banco
6. ^ a b Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
8. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954)
9. ^ a b c d Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE
10. ^ Lleal, Coloma (dir.), DICCA-XV: Diccionario del castellano del siglo XV en la Corona de Aragón, Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, Grup d'Estudis d'Història de la Llengua (GHCL), https://ghcl.ub.edu/diccaxv
11. ^ Alonso Pedraz, Martín (1986), Diccionario medieval español: desde las Glosas Emilianenses y Silenses (s. X) hasta el siglo XV, 2 vols., Salamanca: Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca, p. 488
12. ^ a b c Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 275
13. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 1, 542
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 133
15. ^ Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies