Bank, subst., 1) mound, elevated ground: “sitting on a b.” Tp. I, 2, 389. “I upon this b. will rest my head,” Mids. II, 2, 40. “how sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this b.” Merch. V, 54. Especially a ridge of earth set with flowers; a flower-bed: “this primrose b. whereon we lie,” Ven. 151. “thy --s with pioned and twilled brims,” Tp. IV, 64. Mids. II, 1, 249. Tw. I, 1, 6. Wint. IV, 4, 130. R2 III, 4, 105. H6B III, 1, 228. Cymb. V, 4, 98.
2) the earth rising on the side of a water; a) of a river: Ven. 72. Lucr. 1119. Lucr. 1119 John II, 442. H4A I, 3, 98. H4A I, 3, 98 III, 1, 65. H4B IV, 1, 176.* Troil. III, 2, 10. Caes. I, 1, 50. Caes. I, 1, 50 Cymb. II, 4, 71. Per. II, 4, 24. b) of the sea: Sonn. 56, 11. H4A III, 1, 45. H6B III, 2, 83. R3 IV, 4, 525 (Qq on the shore). “were his brain as barren as --s of Libya,” Troil. I, 3, 328, i. e. the sandy shore.
3) Perhaps == bench (as we speak of a bank of rowers) in a difficult and much disputed passage in Mcb. I, 7, 6: upon this b. and school of time. All M. Edd. write: upon this bank and shoal of time; but nowhere else in Sh. the word bank occurs in the sense of sandbank, and school is the constant reading of O. Edd.
Shakespeare Lexicon. Alexander Schmidt. Berlin. Georg Reimer. 1902.
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