Banker

How to spell banker

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce banker

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does banker mean?

1. nounA person who works in or manages a bank, or who deals professionally in money and finance.

Banker in a sentence

• The banker explained the terms of the mortgage in plain language.

• Her father worked as a banker for nearly forty years before retiring.

Where does banker come from?

Language of origin: Italian

The word combines bank with the agent suffix -er, so it literally names a person who keeps or runs a bank. Bank itself came into English in the 1400s and 1500s from the Italian banca, which originally meant a bench or table; medieval money-changers in Italy did their business sitting at such benches in the marketplace. That same Italian word is also where we get bankrupt, from banca rotta, meaning a 'broken bench', because a failed dealer's table would supposedly be smashed. By the 1530s English speakers were using banker for someone who dealt in money, and the sense steadily settled on a person employed by, or in charge of, a bank. The straightforward spelling rarely traps anyone, since it is simply the familiar word bank plus the everyday -er ending.

How the word is built

• bank (from Italian banca: a money-changer's bench or table)
• -er (agent suffix: one who does)