A bench or long seat, especially one used in medieval times as a place for sitting or conducting business.
From Old French banc, derived from Germanic *bank-, meaning a raised surface or bench. The Latin form 'bancus' was used in medieval legal documents to refer to a judgment bench or merchant's counter.
The word 'bancus' is the ancestor of modern 'bank' — originally, moneylenders would conduct business from a bench (banco in Italian), and when they went bankrupt, their bench would be broken (banca rotta), literally giving us the word 'bankrupt'!
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