bench

Bench comes from Middle English bench, benk, or bynk, from Old English benċ, tracing back through Proto-West Germanic *banki to Proto-Germanic *bankiz, and ultimately to a Proto-Indo-European root *bʰeg-.

The word has stayed remarkably close to its original meaning — a long seat — across all these centuries and languages. More recently, it's also been shortened from 'bench press,' giving it a second life as gym shorthand.

It's a doublet of bank, banc, and banco — words that split off from the same root but drifted toward money and finance instead of furniture. Its closest cousins are found across Germanic languages: Dutch and West Frisian bank, German Bank, Danish bænk, Swedish bänk, and Icelandic bekkur.