bench
/bɛn(t)ʃ
/- Mr Buttery wants to make more of the site, now barely more than a couple of park benches and an engraved stone.
- Looms, beds, tables, chairs, stools and benches were made of wood as well.
- Once outside, I took a seat on a stone bench near the door.
Synonyms
- This street-roof is studded with glass lenses that shine daylight down to laboratory benches below.
- I can envisage these pages being photocopied and pinned above laboratory benches around the world.
- In Downie's day, smallpox work was done on wooden benches in the open laboratory.
Synonyms
- The mock-up design featured access by ramps to all raised spaces, including the judge's bench, witness stand, jury box, and clerk stations.
- In an unprecedented move Magistrate Nicholas got up from the bench and sat at the bar table with the witness and the accused.
- Before joining the bench, the Judge was a law professor who was well known for his erudite criticism of legalized abortion.
- A Leyland magistrate is being forced to retire from the bench against his will because he is too old!
- However, there are some people who move from the academic field to practice or the bench.
- Another bench of Magistrates may, reasonable and rationally, have reached the decision that the appeal should have been dismissed.
- The sessions will take place at Bradford Magistrates Court in front of a specialised bench of magistrates and a prosecutor, who will be experts in ASBOs.
Synonyms
- To achieve this, a precondition is that we should have greater diversity on our Parliamentary benches and in our Party as a whole.
- Opposition to the government comes from the parties that sit on the Opposition benches in Parliament.
- One of the odder aspects of the parliament's back benches is how little flexibility there is within the committee system.
- The Labour leadership has badly let down its back benches and the electorate by undoing its accomplished manifesto promise, now they stand for nothing.
- This has come from the opposition benches in Parliament, the independence movement in Quebec and the general public as well as the arts community itself.
- Dr. Singh, who has just returned from his four-day visit to Japan, is expected to dispel some of the concerns raised by the Opposition bench and the Left party, supporting his government.
- When a timeout is called, players stroll to the bench and coaches hustle to huddle.
- The next season, he was back on the field as the bench coach for new Cleveland manager.
- First-choice half back Sean Long endured a nightmare first half at the JJB and should be relegated to the bench when coach David Waite names his side today.
- From the boxes to the benches high up the slope, the focus shifts from dinner to music as the concert begins.
- Now on a broad bench, we followed it around to the right, going through a tunnel with snow.
- In 1888, additional safeguards were added, with the requirement for a duly qualified veterinary surgeon to be at every show, and each dog entered had to be passed on by him before being benched, and again he had to inspect each dog before noon of each day the show was open.
- All dogs entered by an owner/exhibitor or agent/handler can be benched together.
- About 850 dogs were benched under the canvas, many of them champions of their respective breeds.
- One reason benching players is so detrimental to team play is that it eventually fractures unity.
- You have a certain amount of discipline points for the year - with discipline always being a matter of benching a player.
- The team has tried switching personnel, blitzing more often and benching players.
- He's got the long-hair, the ripped clothing, and he can bench 200 pounds.
- He's now up to about 240 pounds and benching about 170.
- He was benching 310 pounds like it was nobody's business.
Phrases
on the bench
Origin
Old English benc, of Germanic origin; related to Dutch bank and German Bank, also to bank1.
bank from Middle English:
The very different uses of bank are all ultimately related. The bank beside a river was adopted from a Scandinavian word in the early Middle Ages, and is related to bench (Old English). The earliest use of the bank for a financial institution referred to a money-dealer's counter or table. This came from French or Italian in the late 15th century, but goes back to the same root as the river bank. A bank of oars or of lights represents yet another related form. It came into English in the early Middle Ages from French, and originally meant a bench or a platform to speak from. The bench or platform sense is also found in mountebank (late 16th century) for a charlatan, which comes from Italian monta in banco ‘climb on the bench’ referring to the way they attract a crowd, while a bankrupt (mid 16th century), originally a bankrout takes us back to the ‘counter’ sense. It is from Italian banca rotta, which really means ‘a broken bench’, referring to the breaking up of the traders business at the counter. The word was altered early on in its history in English, through association with Latin ruptus ‘broken’. Yet another word from the same source is banquet (Late Middle English) which comes from the French for ‘little bench’ and was originally a snack rather than a lavish meal.