- table (n.)
- late 12c., "board, slab, plate," from O.Fr. table "board, plank, writing table, picture" (11c.), and late O.E. tabele, from W.Gmc. *tabal (cf. O.H.G. zabel, Ger. Tafel), both from L. tabula "a board, plank, table," originally "small flat slab or piece" usually for inscriptions or for games, of uncertain origin, related to Umbrian tafle "on the board." The sense of "piece of furniture with the flat top and legs" first recorded c.1300 (the usual L. word for this was mensa; O.E. writers used bord). The meaning "arrangement of numbers or other figures for convenience" is recorded from late 14c. (e.g. table of contents, mid-15c.). Figurative phrase turn the tables (1630s) is from backgammon (in O.E. and M.E. the game was called tables). Table talk is attested from 1560s, translating L. colloquia mensalis. To table-hop is first recorded 1956. The adj. phrase under-the-table "hidden from view" is recorded from 1949; under the table "passed out from excess drinking" is recorded from 1921. Table tennis is recorded from 1887.
- table (v.)
- in parliamentary sense, 1718, originally "to lay on the (speaker's) table for discussion," from table (n.). But in U.S. political jargon it has the sense of "to postpone indefinitely" (1866).