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Origin and history of table

table(n.)

Middle English, from Old French table, tabel "board, square panel, plank; writing table; picture; food, fare" (11c.), and also a survival of late Old English tabele "flat and relatively thin surface of some hard material," especially "writing tablet (of slabs of wood, etc.,), gaming table," also "top of an altar, part of a pavement;" in late Old English "tablet intended for an inscription." The Old English word is from Germanic *tabal (source also of Dutch tafel, Danish tavle, Old High German zabel "board, plank," German Tafel).

Both the French and Germanic words are from Latin tabula "a board, plank; writing table; list, schedule; picture, painted panel," originally "small flat slab or piece" usually for inscriptions or for games (source also of Spanish tabla, Italian tavola), a word of uncertain origin, related to Umbrian tafle "on the board."

The sense of "piece of furniture consisting of a flat top on legs" is by c. 1300. The usual Latin word for this was mensa (see mensa); Old English writers used bord (see board (n.1)).

Especially the table at which people eat, hence "food placed upon a table" (c. 1400 in English). The meaning "columnar arrangement of words, numbers or other figures on a tabular surface for convenience" is recorded from late 14c. (as in table of contents, which is from mid-15c.).

The figurative phrase turn the tables (1630s) is from backgammon (in Middle English the game was called tables). Table talk "familiar conversation around a table" is attested from 1560s, translating Latin colloquia mensalis. Table manners is from 1824. Table-hopping is recorded by 1943. For under the table see under (prep.). Table-wine, suitable for drinking at a meal, is by 1670s. Table tennis "ping-pong" is recorded from 1887. Table-rapping in spiritualism, supposedly an effect of supernatural powers, is from 1853.

table(v.)

mid-15c., tablen, "enter (someone's name) into a list," thus, "appoint to a duty;" also "provide with food," from various senses in table (n.).

In a parliamentary sense, 1718, originally "to lay on the (Speaker's) table for discussion;" the Speaker's table (attested by 1670s) of the House of Commons being where motions are received. But in U.S. political jargon it has chiefly the sense of "postpone indefinitely" (1866) via notion of "lay aside for future consideration." Related: Tabled; tabling.

also from mid-15c.

Entries linking to table

board(n.1)

"piece of timber sawn flat and thin, longer than it is wide, wider than it is thick, narrower than a plank;" Old English bord "a plank, flat surface," from Proto-Germanic *burdam (source also of Old Norse borð "plank," Dutch bord "board," Gothic fotu-baurd "foot-stool," German Brett "plank"), perhaps from a PIE verb meaning "to cut." See also board (n.2), with which this is so confused as practically to form one word (if indeed they were not the same word all along).

In late Old English or early Middle English the sense was extended to include "table;" hence the transferred meaning "food" (early 14c.), as "that which is served upon a table," especially "daily meals provided at a place of lodging" (late 14c.). Compare boarder, boarding, and Old Norse borð, which also had a secondary sense of "table" and an extended sense "maintenance at table." Hence also above board "honest, open" (1610s; compare modern under the table "dishonest").

A further extension was to "table where council is held" (1570s), from whence the word was transferred to "leadership council, persons having the management of some public or private concern" (1610s), as in board of directors (1712).

"Bow to the board," said Bumble. Oliver brushed away two or three tears that were lingering in his eyes; and seeing no board but the table, fortunately bowed to that.

The meaning "table upon which public notices are written" is from mid-14c. The meaning "table upon which a game is played" is from late 14c. The sense of "thick, stiff paper" is from 1530s. Boards "stage of a theater" is from 1768.

mensa(n.)

"altar top," 1848, Latin, literally "table," also "meal, supper," and "altar, sacrificial table," hence used in Church Latin for "upper slab of a church altar" (see mesa). With a capital M-, the name of an organization for people of IQs of 148 or more founded in England in 1946, the name chosen, according to the organization, to suggest a "round table" type group. The constellation (1763) originally was Mons Mensae "Table Mountain." It is the faintest constellation in the sky, with no star brighter than magnitude 5.0.

La Caille, who did so much for our knowledge of the southern heavens, formed the figure from stars under the Greater Cloud, between the poles of the equator and the ecliptic, just north of the polar Octans; the title being suggested by the fact that the Table Mountain, back of Cape Town, "which had witnessed his nightly vigils and daily toils," also was frequently capped by a cloud. [Richard Hinckley Allen, "Star Names and Their Meanings," London: 1899]