Where do the words bank, Finance and money originate from?

[carol_b]

Where do the words bank, Finance and money originate from? Any funny stories associated with them?

[miss_chase]

don't know but i do know that the word mortgage literally translates as "death grip" (from the french)...

hth

[Octavius]

Mortgage is actually "death pledge".

Bank: The term is derived from banco, the Italian word for bench, as the Lombard Jews in Italy kept benches in the market place, where they exchanged money and bills, When a banker failed, his bench was broken up by the populace; and from this circumstance sprang the term bankrupt.

Finance comes from the Latin root 'finis' meaning "end." Its present day monetary connotation derive from the notion of "finally settling a debt by payment." Its immediate source is the Old French *finance,* a derivative of the verb *finer* for end or settle which, when it was originally acquired by English, still meant, literally, end.

Money: Comes from the old French word monnaie and means 'coin, money'. Meanwhile the French use argent for 'money' which means 'silver'. Monnaie has a Latin heritage with divine roots, since the Romans minted their coins in the temple of the goddess Juno Moneta

All very unfunny really.

[Hgrove]

I thought, but have not got time to check, that money came from the latin munus which is also where the world munificent comes from.  Munus meant assets or fortune.