Other forms: bands, banded, banding
A band is a small group of musicians who play together under one name. Four people in a garage, one behind the drums and one shouting into a microphone; the band at a wedding, working through the songs everyone knows.
The other band is a flat strip that goes round something: a rubber band round a bundle of letters, the band on a watch, a gold band on a finger. From the strip comes the idea of a range with a top and a bottom — a tax band, an age band, the band of frequencies a radio picks up. As a verb, people band together when they join forces against something bigger than them. Watch the spelling: a band plays a song, a banned song nobody may play. And a band is not an orchestra — an orchestra is large, sits down, and has violins in it.
1nounbandA small group of musicians who play together.~94%
“Her brother plays bass in a band that rehearses in a cold garage.”
2nounstripA flat strip of material worn round something or holding it together.~2%
“He slipped a rubber band round the deck of cards.”
3nounrangeA range between an upper and a lower limit.~2%
“The pay rise pushed her into the next tax band.”
4verbjoinTo join together with others for a shared purpose.~2%
“The neighbours banded together to stop the road being widened.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 17 sentences found in the wild and placed 16 of them on a sense (1 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
Band goes back to the Proto-Indo-European root *bʰendʰ-, 'to tie, bind', and reached Old English as beand: a bond, a chain, a ribbon, a crown. Old French bande pushed the word along on its way through Middle English. So the strip that ties a bundle shut and the bond that ties people together are the same word, and bind, bond and bend are all close relatives.
Proto-Indo-European
*bʰendʰ-
Middle English
band
English, today
band
Built from
From Middle English band. Middle English band (also bond), from Old English beand, bænd, bend (“bond, chain, fetter, band, ribbon, ornament, chaplet, crown”), from Proto-Germanic bandą, bandiz (“band, fetter”), from Proto-Indo-European bʰendʰ- (“to tie, bind”). Middle English band reinforced by Old French bande. Cognate with Dutch band, German Band, Danish bånd, Swedish band, Icelandic band (“band”). Related to bond, bind, bend.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA