Etymograph

English

table

Table comes from Middle English table ‘the top of a table’, from Old English tabele ‘board’, from Latin tabula, from Proto-Italic *taðlā.

  1. Proto-Italicc. 1500–700 BCE*taðlā1‘board’reconstructed
  2. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEtabula2‘tablet’
  3. Old Englishc. 450–1150tabele2‘board’
  4. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500table2‘the top of a table’
  5. Englishearliest quotation c. 1599–1602table2

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor

  1. 1 Wiktionary, Latin tabula
  2. 2 Wiktionary, English table
  3. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: c. 1599–1602, William Shakespeare, The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke: “Alas poore Yorick […] VVhere be your Jibes now?…”.

Lineage

  1. Proto-Italicc. 1500–700 BCE*taðlāWiktionary, Latin tabula‘board’reconstructed
  2. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEtabulaWiktionary, English table‘tablet’
  3. Old Englishc. 450–1150tabeleWiktionary, English table‘board’
  4. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500tableWiktionary, English table‘the top of a table’
  5. Englishearliest quotation c. 1599–1602tableWiktionary, English table. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: c. 1599–1602, William Shakespeare, The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke: “Alas poore Yorick […] VVhere be your Jibes now?…”

The story

The sense of “piece of furniture” is from Old French table, of same Latin origin; Old English used bēod or bord instead for this meaning: see board.

Full etymology on Wiktionary

Word family

English words that share an ancestor with table, grouped by the ancestor they share, most familiar first.

through Latin tabula ‘tablet, board, plank, chart’

15 more relatives in the full family tree

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Today it means

noun An item of furniture with a flat top surface raised above the ground, usually on one or more legs.

Sources

Sources: Wiktionary, “table”; the older steps come from the Wiktionary entry for Latin tabula. By Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0, via kaikki.org (dump of Oct 3 2026); text adapted and restructured. Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word. License.

Etymograph / Proto-Italic *taðlā / table