bar vs bench

bar

noun
  • The railing surrounding the part of a courtroom in which the judges, lawyers, defendants and witnesses stay. 

  • An establishment offering cosmetic services. 

  • Premises or a counter serving any type of beverage. 

  • A solid metal object with uniform (round, square, hexagonal, octagonal or rectangular) cross-section; in the US its smallest dimension is ¹⁄₄ inch or greater, a piece of thinner material being called a strip. 

  • The space between the tusks and grinders in the upper jaw of a horse, in which the bit is placed. 

  • A ridge or succession of ridges of sand or other substance, especially a formation extending across the mouth of a river or harbor or off a beach, and which may obstruct navigation. (FM 55-501). 

  • The central divider between the inner and outer table of a backgammon board, where stones are placed if they are hit. 

  • A broad shaft, band, or stripe. 

  • The bar exam, the legal licensing exam. 

  • A drilling or tamping rod. 

  • A counter, or simply a cabinet, from which alcoholic drinks are served in a private house or a hotel room. 

  • An addition to a military medal, on account of a subsequent act. 

  • A dividing line (physical or notional) in the chamber of a legislature beyond which only members and officials may pass. 

  • A solid, more or less rigid object of metal or wood with a uniform cross-section smaller than its length. 

  • A long, narrow drawn or printed rectangle, cuboid or cylinder, especially as used in a bar code or a bar chart. 

  • A similar sign indicating that the charge on a particle is the negative of its usual value (and that consequently the particle is in fact an antiparticle). 

  • A non-SI unit of pressure equal to 100,000 pascals, approximately equal to atmospheric pressure at sea level. 

  • The counter of such premises. 

  • The sign indicating that the characteristic of a logarithm is negative, conventionally placed above the digit(s) to show that it applies to the characteristic only and not to the mantissa. 

  • A metasyntactic variable representing an unspecified entity, often the second in a series, following foo. 

  • The crossbar. 

  • Any level of achievement regarded as a challenge to be overcome. 

  • A vertical line across a musical staff dividing written music into sections, typically of equal durational value. 

  • A linear shoaling landform feature within a body of water. 

  • An establishment where alcohol and sometimes other refreshments are served. 

  • Collectively, lawyers or the legal profession; specifically applied to barristers in some countries, but including all lawyers in others. 

  • One of the ordinaries in heraldry; a diminutive of a fess. 

  • Any of various lines used as punctuation or diacritics, such as the pipe ⟨|⟩, fraction bar (as in 12), and strikethrough (as in Ⱥ), formerly (obsolete) including oblique marks such as the slash. 

  • Anything that obstructs, hinders, or prevents; an obstruction; a barrier. 

  • The part of the crust of a horse's hoof which is bent inwards towards the frog at the heel on each side, and extends into the centre of the sole. 

  • A city gate, in some British place names. 

  • An informal establishment selling food to be consumed on the premises. 

  • A business selling alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises, or the premises themselves; a public house. 

  • One of those musical sections. 

  • A vein or dike crossing a lode. 

  • A cuboid piece of any solid commodity. 

  • One of an array of bar-shaped symbols that display the level of something, such as wireless signal strength or battery life remaining. 

  • A gatehouse of a castle or fortified town. 

  • A horizontal pole that must be crossed in the high jump and pole vault. 

  • An official order or pronouncement that prohibits some activity. 

  • A measure of drugs, typically one ounce. 

prep
  • Except, other than, besides. 

  • Denotes the minimum odds offered on other horses not mentioned by name. 

verb
  • To obstruct the passage of (someone or something). 

  • To imprint or paint with bars, to stripe. 

  • To prohibit. 

  • To lock or bolt with a bar. 

bench

noun
  • The place where the judges sit. 

  • A collection or group of dogs exhibited to the public, traditionally on benches or raised platforms. 

  • The dignity of holding an official seat. 

  • A long seat for politicians in a parliamentary chamber. 

  • The place where players (substitutes) and coaches sit when not playing. 

  • A kitchen surface on which to prepare food, a counter. 

  • A flat ledge in the slope of an earthwork, work of masonry, or similar. 

  • The people who decide on the verdict; the judiciary. 

  • A place where assembly or hand work is performed; a workbench. 

  • The weight one is able to bench press, especially the maximum weight capable of being pressed. 

  • A bathroom surface which holds the washbasin, a vanity. 

  • A horizontal padded surface, usually adjustable in height and inclination and often with attached weight rack, used for proper posture during exercise. 

  • A bracket used to mount land surveying equipment onto a stone or a wall. 

  • A long seat with or without a back, found for example in parks and schools. 

  • A thin strip of relatively flat land bounded by steeper slopes above and below. 

  • The number of players on a team able to participate, expressed in terms of length. 

verb
  • To push a person backward against a conspirator behind them who is on their hands and knees, causing them to fall over. 

  • To remove a player from play. 

  • To remove someone from a position of responsibility temporarily. 

  • To place on a bench or seat of honour. 

  • To lift by bench pressing 

  • To furnish with benches. 

How often have the words bar and bench occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )