Definition of "banca" [banca]

• A dugout covered with a roof of bamboo. (noun)

The Century Dictionary (Public Domain)

• "Around the year 1000, with Romance languages replacing Latin as the spoken tongues of territories formerly within the Roman Empire, the Late Latin word bancus, on loan from a Germanic language, yielded the Italian word banca."
• "Every day, the money changers sat at their benches (called banca), coins piled high in front of them, shouting various exchange rates as currency ebbed and flowed."
• "A native "banca" is a "dug-out," a canoe hollowed out from the trunk of a tree."