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Right Bank

Right Bank

4.8
The north side of the River Seine in Paris known for shops and museums
  • noun
translation icon : Ribera Derecha
  • YOU KNOW, WE'RE OVER HERE ON THE RIGHT BANK.
  • the Right Bank of the Seine

Picasso also once struck wife Olga and dragged her around the floor of their Right Bank apartment.

Examples

  • Whereas the Place de la Bourse was earlier included as one of the "monumentos de primer orden" gracing Paris's elegant Right Bank, we now discover it to be a place of avarice, public humiliation, and death.

    Academic text (1993)
  • Both women frequent a kind aunt and a close friend/cousin who live on the Right Bank; both have busy and absent-minded fathers.

    Academic text (1997)
  • Picasso also once struck wife Olga and dragged her around the floor of their Right Bank apartment.

  • On the Right Bank

  • - RIGHT BANK OR LEFT BANK--WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE, EL?

  • THE RIGHT BANK?

  • They'd be staying at the George V, they'd go to the Louvre and tire quickly, they'd meet his American friends in restaurants on the Right Bank, where they'd drink and laugh.

    Fiction book (1999)
  • After we married, we took a more focused approach, using the Marais district on the Seine's Right Bank as home base.

  • In September, Paris turned a stretch of highway on the right bank of the river Seine into a pedestrian zone in an attempt to reduce pollution.

  • They'd be staying at the George V, they'd go to the Louvre and tire quickly, they'd meet his American friends in restaurants on the Right Bank, where they'd drink and laugh.

Synonyms

Rive Droite
vsRight Bank
8.7

The northern side of Paris along the Seine with many shops and businesses

is stated more definitely, stressing historical as well as commercial and cultural importance

Surface Forms

Right Bank singular
Right Banks plural

Morphology

right + bank

The phrase is compositionally built from 'right' + 'bank', so a learner who knows both words can infer it denotes the bank on the right-hand side of a river. However, as a capitalized toponym it specifically denotes Paris's north bank and its cultural/administrative sense, which depends on local naming conventions (river-side orientation and proper-name usage) that a B1 learner would not reliably know. Because the literal side-meaning is accessible but the specific Parisian referent and cultural sense are not, it is only partially transparent.

Etymology

Right Bank comes from a simple river picture: the bank on the right side when you follow the Seine. That side of Paris grew many shops, galleries and rich neighbourhoods, so Right Bank now means the city's northern, 'commercial and fashionable' area.