table

Definition

Furniture with a top surface to accommodate a variety of uses.

Etymology

Inherited from Middle English table, tabel, tabil, tabul, from Old English tabele, tabul, tablu, tabule, tabula (“board”); also as tæfl, tæfel, an early Germanic borrowing of Latin tabula (“tablet, board, plank, chart”). The sense of “piece of furniture” is from Old French table, of same Latin origin; Old English used bēod or bord instead for this meaning: see board. Doublet of tabula and tavla.

Example Sentences

• "Set that dish on the table over there, please."
• "He had one hand on the bounce bottle—and he'd never let go of that since he got back to the table—but he had a handkerchief in the other and was swabbing his deadlights with it."
• "A very neat old woman, still in her good outdoor coat and best beehive hat, was sitting at a polished mahogany table on whose surface there were several scored scratches so deep that a triangular piece of the veneer had come cleanly away,[…]."