banc

Banc is a term with several distinct meanings across languages and fields. In French, banc is a common noun meaning a long seat for people, such as a bench in a park or a pew in a church. It can also refer to the bench used by a group of judges or legislators, depending on context.

In English legal usage, the phrase en banc (from French) denotes a court sitting with the full membership of judges, rather than a smaller panel. Decisions issued en banc represent the opinion of the entire court and are usually reserved for important or unsettled questions. The opposite is a panel or division, where a subset of judges decides the case.

Geographically and nautically, banc can denote a sandbank or shoal in French and related contexts. In bilingual or translated settings, banc may appear to refer to underwater or shoreline features such as a sandbank, though in standard English this meaning is uncommon and often expressed as sandbank or sandbar instead.

In summary, banc primarily appears in three distinct senses: a physical bench in French usage; a legal term in English-language courts meaning the full court sitting; and a geographic term related to sandbanks in French and related languages. The word is etymologically tied to the French word for bench, and its English use is largely defined by the legal phrase en banc.