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What does the use of 'bank' as a verb mean in this context which has nothing to do with actual banks (financial institutions)?

English Language Learners Asked by cm-6368696b6f on November 10, 2021

What is the meaning of the word bank as a verb here?

EDIT:

"…Boris Johnson does not want talks to “[drag on]”, but [his] allies admit he is loath to make new concessions now when the EU side would simply bank them." Please note that this is a non-verbatim extract taken by myself from the Financial Times

(The copyright policy says I can only extract up to 30 words non-verbatim so I’ve taken out a few words because the sentence was longer than 30 words.)

I have searched the definition of bank as a verb on Merriam Webster and Cambridge but I can’t find a definition that makes sense in this context.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bank

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/bank

To give you some context about where the sentence came from. It’s from a newspaper about Brexit negotiations between Boris Johnson (UK leader) and the European Union (EU) where Boris Johnson doesn’t want negotiations to drag on but at the same time he is also weary of making new concessions because the EU would simply ‘bank’ them. Brexit is a separation of the UK country from the EU which requires negotiations to agree on how trade, immigration and other interactions between the UK country and the remaining countries in the EU will work.

What does bank mean here?

One Answer

If the original sentence is only a small part of the article, you should be able to quote it under "fair use" doctrine.

As mentioned in the comment, it's a metaphor. It means that they will accept any concessions as given, without making any concessions themselves. They will then expect to get even more concessions in a final negotiation.

Answered by Jack O'Flaherty on November 10, 2021

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