bank
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
4 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "bank", 4-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "bank" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "bank" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
bank is aEnglishnoun. It means: An institution where one can place and borrow money and take care of financial affairs. Pronounced /ˈbæŋk/. It ranks #705 in English word frequency. Often confused with bn and bar.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | bank |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈbæŋk/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #705 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for bank is 4 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈbæŋk/. Corpus data places it at rank #705 in overall English word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language.Wiktionary records 9 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 6 documented wrong-spelling variants for bank, with forms such as "abnk", "bakn", and "bankk". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "bn", "bar", "bay", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *bʰeg-der. Proto-Germanic *bankiz Proto-West Germanic *banki Lombardic bankbor. Italian bancabor. Middle French banqueder. English bank Inherited from Middle English banke, from Middle French banque, from Italian banca (“c… Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is bank, spelled B-A-N-K, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1An institution where one can place and borrow money and take care of financial affairs.
- 2A branch office of such an institution.
- 3An underwriter or controller of a card game.
- 4A fund from deposits or contributions, to be used in transacting business; a joint stock or capital.
- 5The sum of money etc. which the dealer or banker has as a fund from which to draw stakes and pay losses.
- 6Money; profit.
- 7In certain games, such as dominos, a fund of pieces from which the players are allowed to draw.
- 8A safe and guaranteed place of storage for and retrieval of important items or goods.
- 9A device used to store coins or currency.
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *bʰeg-der. Proto-Germanic *bankiz Proto-West Germanic *banki Lombardic bankbor. Italian bancabor. Middle French banqueder. English bank Inherited from Middle English banke, from Middle French banque, from Italian banca (“counter, moneychanger's bench or table”), from Lombardic bank (“bench, counter”), from Proto-West Germanic *banki, from Proto-Germanic *bankiz (“bench, counter”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰeg- (“to turn, curve, bend, bow”). Doublet of bench, banc, and banco. For the bench-bank relation, compare typologically Russian ла́вка (lávka), прила́вок (prilávok).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: abnk,bakn,bankk,bannk,bbank,bnak
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for bank
Misspelling Variants of "bank"
Frequency rank: #705 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter B in our English index: