Origin and history of tablet

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.

1969, short for tab key (1916) of a typewriter (later computer); a short form of tabulator. As "pill, lozenge" it is by 1961, shortened form of tablet (in the later 1960s and after especially one of sugar containing LSD). As an abbreviation of tabloid (newspaper) it is 1990s slang. As a short form of tabulator key of a typewriter (later computer) it is recorded from 1916.

1884, Tabloid, "small tablet of medicine," trademark name (by Burroughs, Wellcome and Co.) for compressed or concentrated chemicals and drugs, a hybrid formed from tablet + Greek-derived suffix -oid.

A new and successful remedy has been found for the distressing nervous complaint known as hay fever. One-sixth of a grain of the recently discovered remarkable anæsthetic cocaine is incorporated into what are called tabloids and inserted in the nasal passages. [South Branch (W. Va.) Intelligencer, Oct, 30, 1885]

 By 1898, it was being used figuratively to mean a compressed form or dose of anything, hence tabloid journalism (1900), simplified and, in the negative view, sensationalized, and tabloid (n.) in reference to newspapers that typified it (1901).

The concept and word were associated originally with British publishing magnate Alfred C. Harmsworth (1865-1922), editor and proprietor of the London Daily Mail. Harmsworth's use was in reference to the short, condensed news articles; by others it might be felt as referring to the newspaper itself being smaller than a broadsheet.

"What a person wants in his daily morning paper not long-winded essays, nor does he care to have undigested news by the column. He prefers it in concentrated tabloids, with all the interesting points put prominently forward, so that he can run and read." [quoted in Victoria (Australia) Age, Jan. 29, 1898]