Definition of "table"

table

/ˈteɪbl̩/

noun
plural tables
1. Furniture with a top surface to accommodate a variety of uses.
  1. An item of furniture with a flat top surface raised above the ground, usually on one or more legs.
    Quotations
    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.
    1913, Joseph C. Lincoln, chapter 6, in Mr. Pratt's Patients
    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, […].
    1963, Margery Allingham, “Foreword”, in The China Governess
  2. The board or table-like furniture on which a game is played, such as snooker, billiards, or draughts.
  3. A flat tray which can be used as a table.
  4. A supply of food or entertainment.
  5. A service of Holy Communion.
  6. (backgammon) One half of a backgammon board, which is divided into the inner and outer table.
2. A group of people at a table, for example, for a meal, meeting or game.
  Quotations
  The humor of my proposition appealed more strongly to Miss Trevor than I had looked for, and from that time forward she became her old self again; […] . Our table in the dining-room became again the abode of scintillating wit and caustic repartee, Farrar bracing up to his old standard, and the demand for seats in the vicinity rose to an animated competition.
  1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter VIII, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd.
  1. (poker, metonymically) The lineup of players at a given table.
  2. (roleplaying games, metonymically) A group of players meeting regularly to play a campaign.
  3. (waitstaff, metonymically) A group of diners at a given table or tables.
3. A two-dimensional presentation of data.
  1. A matrix or grid of data arranged in rows and columns.
    Quotations
    I’m using mathesis — a universal science of measurement and order …And there is also taxinomia a principle of classification and ordered tabulation.Knowledge replaced universal resemblance with finite differences. History was arrested and turned into tables …Western reason had entered the age of judgement.
    1997, Chris Horrocks, Introducing Foucault, Totem Books, Icon Books, page 69
  2. A collection of arithmetic calculations arranged in a table, such as multiplications in a multiplication table.
  3. (computing, chiefly databases) A lookup table, most often a set of vectors.
  4. (sports) A visual representation of a classification of teams or individuals based on their success over a predetermined period.
    Quotations
    On this evidence they will certainly face tougher tests, as a depleted Newcastle side seemed to bask in the relative security of being ninth in the table.
    2011 April 10, Alistair Magowan, “Aston Villa 1-0 Newcastle”, in BBC Sport
4. (music) The top of a stringed instrument, particularly a member of the violin family: the side of the instrument against which the strings vibrate.
5. The flat topmost facet of a cut diamond.
verb
third-person singular simple present tables, present participle tabling, simple past and past participle tabled
1. To tabulate; to put into a table or grid.
2. (now rare) To supply (a guest, client etc.) with food at a table; to feed.
  Quotations
  At Siena I was tabled in the house of one Alberto Scipioni
  'April 13 1638, Henry Wotton, letter to John Milton
3. (obsolete) To delineate; to represent, as in a picture; to depict.
  Quotations
  tabled and pictured in the chambers of meditation
  c. 1607, Francis Bacon, letter to Tobie Matthew
4. (non-US) To put on the table of a commission or legislative assembly; to propose for formal discussion or consideration, to put on the agenda.
  Quotations
  In a raucous Commons, the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, confirmed he had tabled a formal motion of confidence in the government, backed by other opposition leaders, which MPs would vote on on Wednesday.
  2019 January 16, Heather Stewart, Daniel Boffey, The Guardian
5. (chiefly US) To remove from the agenda, to postpone dealing with; to shelve (to indefinitely postpone consideration or discussion of something).
6. (carpentry, obsolete) To join (pieces of timber) together using coaks.
7. To put on a table.
  Quotations
  [A]fter some clatter offered us a rent of five pounds for the right to shoot here, and even tabled the cash that moment, and would not pocket it again.
  1833 Thomas Carlyle, letter to his Mother, The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
8. (nautical) To make board hems in the skirts and bottoms of (sails) in order to strengthen them in the part attached to the bolt-rope.