[f. BANK sb.1]
I. 1. trans. To form a bank to; to border, edge, hem in as a bank.
1590. Greene, Neuer too late (1600), 23. A silent streame … Banckt about with choyce of flowers.
1727. Thomson, Summer, 660. Burning sands, that bank the shrubby vales.
1801. Southey, Thalaba, V. xxii. A ridge of rocks that bank’d its side.
† 2. intr. To border upon. Obs.
1598. Stow, Surv., vii. (1603), 68. The next Tower or Castle, banckiting [sic] also on the riuer of Thames. Ibid., xxxviii. (1603), 336. This Castle banketh on the River Thames.
3. trans. To confine within a bank. Also fig.
1622. Callis, Stat. Sewers (1647), 70. Kept and preserved by banking and new fencing in.
1662. Fuller, Worthies (1840), III. 388. The prince and people … Both being bank’d in their respective station.
1883. Eng. Illust. Mag., Nov., 75/1. The river is banked high on either side.
4. Watchmaking: a. trans. To confine the movements of the escapement, which is the function of the two banking-pins in a watch. b. intr. To impinge against the banking-pins; said of the escapement (or of the watch).
1765. Ludlam, in Phil. Trans., LV. 207. The brass pin … is for the other arm of the beam to bank against.
1884. F. Britten, Watch & Clockm., 20. The escapement may be banked through the spring. Ibid., 74. If the watch persistently banks, it is an indication that the balance is too light.
II. † 5. To coast, to skirt. Obs.
1595. Shaks., John, V. ii. 104. I haue bank’d their Townes?
6. To bring ashore, to land.
1873. G. Davies, Mount. & Mere, ii. 11. Scarcely giving a flap of the tail till they were banked.
7. To shelter under a bank.
1865. W. White, E. Eng., I. 110. As decoy men say, they are then comfortably banked.
III. 8. trans. To heap or pile up.
1833. Ht. Martineau, Charmed Sea, iv. 59. They had banked up the snow.
1872. Black, Adv. Phaeton, xxiii. 317. The clouds had got banked up in great billows of vapour.
9. intr. (for refl.) To rise up into banks.
1870. Daily News, 28 Dec., 6/2. The smoke from our artillery away at Sevran was still banking up in large clouds.
1883. Black, in Harper’s Mag., Dec., 69/2. Clouds begin to bank up.
10. To make up a fire, by covering it with a heap of fuel so pressed down that it will remain a long time burning slowly.
1860. Merc. Mar. Mag., VII. 330. The fires had been banked.
1865. Dickens, Mut. Fr., ii. 277. Fire carefully banked up with damp cinders.
11. To bank out: to empty out (coal as drawn from the pit) into a heap.
1851. in Coal-tr. Terms Northumbld. &anp; Durh., 6.
