bench / bench/ • n. 1. a long seat for several people, typically made of wood or stone. 2. a long, sturdy work table used by a carpenter, mechanic, scientist, or other worker. 3. (the bench) the office of judge or magistrate: his appointment to the civil bench. ∎  a judge's seat in a court. ∎  judges or magistrates collectively: rulings from the bench. 4. (the bench) a seat on which sports coaches and players sit during a game when they are not playing. • v. [tr.] withdraw (a sports player) from play; substitute: the coach benched quarterback Randall Cunningham in favor of Jim McMahon. PHRASES: on the bench1. appointed as or in the capacity of a judge or magistrate: he retired after twenty-five years on the bench. 2. acting as one of the possible substitutes in a sports contest.

bench. Pew. A bench-end is therefore the terminal timber facing of a church-pew, frequently decorated with poppy-heads, blind tracery, and the like. A bench-table or bench-table stone is a low projecting course of masonry, its lowest part chamfered, forming a seat against medieval walls in e.g. cloisters.

Bench the office of a judge or magistrate, from the bench as a judge's seat in a law court (recorded in this sense from Middle English); from this comes the expression raised to the Bench, meaning, elevated to the dignity of a judge. The term Bench and Bar is used for judges and barristers collectively.
bencher in the UK, a senior member of any of the Inns of Court, who form for each Inn a self-elective body, managing its affairs, and traditionally possessed the privilege of ‘calling to the bar’.