(a) A small, portable writing tablet made from a slab of wood or other hard material, often covered with wax in which the characters are incised; pl. a set of tablets, usu. tied or hinged together, a notebook, diptych; paire (of) tables; tables pendaunt, ?diptychs; reporting tables, tablets containing course or lecture notes; (b) a large flat slab of worked stone, metal, etc. bearing an incised or a raised inscription or figure, precepts, etc.; a memorial or votive tablet; also, a wooden placard or sign; box ~, a slab of boxwood prepared for an inscription; (c) one of the two stone tablets bearing the Ten Commandments; also fig.; tables of testament; (d) a surface prepared to receive a painting; also, the painting itself.

A piece of furniture consisting of a flat slab of wood or other material supported on trestles or legs, a table; also, a tabletop (as distinct from the supports): (a) a table for general use, worktable; also, a vendor's stand, moneychanger's table; ~ joined, joined ~, a table with its parts more or less permanently joined together; ~ parted, an unassembled table or a table made to come apart; (b) a dining table; goddes ~, the altar; drauen (leien awei) ~, to remove the table after a meal; haunten other mennes ~, live at others' expense, freeload; (c) fig. a place of spiritual nourishment; (d) a meal, food placed on a table to be eaten; regular purchased daily meals, board; also, fig. a group of persons sharing meals, a household; (e) at ~, at table, having a meal; biginnen ~, to be seated in a place of honor at a meal; eten (sitten) at tables ende, be seated in an inferior position at a dining table; setten ~, set a board on trestles in preparation for a meal; sitten within the ~, sit near the middle of a long table; (f) in cpds., combs., & phrases: ~ cloth, a tablecloth; ~ cover; ~ dormaunt, dormaunt ~, ?a table with the board permanently attached to the trestles; ?a table fixed to the floor; ~ knif, a table knife; ~ of the povre peple, povre ~, a table provided for the feeding of the indigent; ~ rounde, rounde ~ [see round(e table phr.]; folded (folding) ~, a folding table [see also folding ppl. (f)]; heigh ~, the head table at a meal; long ~; second ~, a dining table reserved for inferiors; side ~; (g) in conventional comparison.

(a) A plank, board; a post, wooden pillar; also, a splint [quot. ?a1425 *Chauliac(1)]; tables stondinge, upright posts; (b) eccl. a decorated panel raised above and behind an altar, a reredos, retable; also, a raised structure attached to the back of an altar and used for decoration, a gradin.

Arch. A level, horizontal section of a structure: a floor; a tier of a foundation; a platform; a cornice; a stringcourse; also fig.; ~ bildinge, a story of a building; ~ ston; corbel ~, a stringcourse ornamented with corbels; ground ~ ston, a foundation stone; join ~, a thin, plain stringcourse [see also join-table n.]; kinges ~, ?a cornice; ?an ornate stringcourse; legement ~ [see legement n.]; renge ~, a stringcourse; severonne ~, a gable coping.

(a) A columnar arrangement of written words, numbers, or symbols or some combination thereof which makes information on their relationships readily accessible; ~ marchaunt, a table used for converting coins of different denominations; ~ of almenak (auges, centres, etc.), a table providing data on the celestial angles at which planets are observed; ~ of arzachel, tables toletanes, arzacheles tables, a set of astronomical tables devised for the city of Toledo, Spain, and compiled by the Moorish astronomer az-Zarqālī; (b) an index, a concordance; also, a list or register of names, dates, etc.; also, a division of a treatise; feste) honde ~, a hand-list or table of feast days; (c) one of four lists of moral prescriptions devised by Reginald Pecock to supplement the two tables of Mosaic law; filling (spreding) the four tables, the title of a lost work by Pecock; (d) tables matrimonial, written nuptial agreements or contracts.

Game. & chess (a) A game board; a chessboard; pl. game boards [quot. a1425]; also, a hinged two-part game board or chessboard; the two hinged boards used in backgammon or a similar game [quot. 1415 Will]; ~ bord; ~ hasard, a board for a game of chance of some kind; ~ man, a game piece, chessman; ~ meine, game pieces, chessmen; (b) usually pl. the game of backgammon or some similar game [quot. c1390 could also be construed as (a)]; (c) ~ pleiere, pleiere at the tables; pleien at (the) tables, to play backgammon or some similar game; also, gamble; pleiinge at (the, tho) tables, the act of playing backgammon or some similar game; also, the act or practice of gaming, gambling.

(a) A thin, flat metal plate forming a movable part of an instrument; (b) ~ diamaunt, a diamond cut with a large upper horizontal surface.

(a) Agr. A cleared, smoothed piece of land prepared for the planting of crops, a plot, bed; (b) anat. a continuous bony surface, esp. in the skull, formed by the close suturing of bones; also, the skeletal plane formed by the joining of the sternum and the ribs; (c) palm. the flat space lying between certain lines of the palm of the hand; ~ line, line of the ~, the heart line.

(a) Error for takel n.; (b) error for tale n.

In surnames and place name.