BENCH, a long narrow wooden seat for several persons, with or without a back. While the chair was yet a seat of state or dignity the bench was ordinarily used by the commonalty. It is still extensively employed for other than domestic purposes, as in schools, churches and places of amusement. Bench or Banc, in law, originally was the seat occupied by judges in court ; hence the term is used of a tribunal of justice itself, as the King's Bench (q.v.) the Common Bench, and is now applied to judges or magistrates collectively as the "judicial bench," "bench of magis trates." The word is also applied to any seat where a number of people sit in an official capacity, or as equivalent to the dignity itself, as "the civic bench," the "bench of aldermen," the "episco pal bench," the "front bench," i.e., that reserved for the leaders of either party in the British House of Commons.