TABLE

Meaning of TABLE in English

I. noun

COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES

a breakfast table/room

▪

The house has a large kitchen and a breakfast room.

a desk/table/dresser etc drawer

▪

The passports are in my desk drawer.

a picnic table

a table/desk/bedside lamp

▪

He read by the light of the bedside lamp.

bedside lamp/table/cabinet etc

▪

The clock on her bedside table said half past four.

bird table

book a table (= in a restaurant )

▪

I’ll book a table for 7.30 tomorrow evening.

bussing tables

▪

Shelley had a job bussing tables .

card table

changing table

clear the table (= remove the dirty plates, forks etc )

▪

It’s Kelly’s turn to clear the table .

coffee table book

coffee table

dining table

dinner table

▪

It wasn’t a very suitable conversation for the dinner table.

dressing table

head table

high table

laying the table

▪

John was laying the table .

league table

▪

The government’s school league tables are published today.

multiplication table

occasional table

operating table

periodic table

propose/put forward/table a motion (= make a proposal )

▪

I’d like to propose a motion to move the weekly meetings to Thursdays.

snooker table/room/hall

table a resolution (= officially propose it )

▪

Siddall tabled a resolution asking for the Board’s approval of the Five Year Business Plan.

table d'hôte

table dancing

table football

table lamp

table linen

table manners (= the polite way of eating at a table )

▪

My parents expected us to have good table manners.

table manners

▪

Their children have very good table manners.

table mat

table of contents (= a list at the beginning of a document that shows the different parts into which it is divided )

▪

The program automatically creates a table of contents .

table tennis

table top

▪

Her fingers drummed on the table top .

table wine (= an inexpensive wine to drink with a meal )

▪

The vineyard produce table wines for local use.

table wine

table/kitchen scraps American English

the negotiating table (= discussing something )

▪

His first aim is to get the warring parties back to the negotiating table .

times table

▪

Do you know the eleven times table?

toning tables

top table

trestle table

vanity table

water table

COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS

■ ADJECTIVE

dining

▪

Grayling has now tried a number of different shapes of dining table , including circular and triangular in varying sizes.

▪

The dining table and chairs are all in black walnut.

▪

Instead a large, old-fashioned dining table .

▪

Later she helped Mr Priddy to set the dining table upstairs.

▪

I went upstairs, had a wash then took my place at the dining table .

▪

He was like a kid making his camp under the dining room table with some blankets and pillows.

▪

She left the envelope on her dining table while she prepared her evening meal.

▪

She saw tantalizing gatherings round the bold rectangle of the dining table .

round

▪

On a small round table , polished for him by Dadda, was a bust of Tace.

▪

A round table was covered with a white linen cloth and glistening silverware.

▪

It was empty apart from a round wooden table , a large golden picture frame on one wall and a cupboard.

▪

They dream of a great castle called Camelot and a round table that could seat 150 knights.

▪

There was a paperback on the round table to the right of her chair.

▪

It was long, cool and cavernous here; customers sat at small round tables , also of teak.

▪

The round dining table is dark rosewood with a matching set of chairs.

▪

A round table covered in cracked oilcloth stood bare of bowls, jugs, cups and saucers.

wooden

▪

It was empty apart from a round wooden table , a large golden picture frame on one wall and a cupboard.

▪

Topic Vibrations Materials A wooden table or desk Demonstration 1.

▪

They ordered gins, and sat on a wooden bench before a wooden table , while Karen admired the place.

▪

She could put it beside the wooden table lamp on the cupboard by the door.

▪

Several stood at the bar, and eight or ten others were grouped in twos and threes at dark wooden tables .

▪

Leary poured coffee into wide china cups and they sat around the rough wooden kitchen table and drank.

■ NOUN

bedside

▪

Liz tiptoed to switch on the lamp on the bedside table .

▪

Not daring to put on the light, she sat up and felt for the glass of water on the bedside table .

▪

She looked at her watch on her bedside table and noted it was eight-thirty.

▪

William took her empty glass and put it with his on the bedside table .

▪

Mungo remembered seeing her teeth in a glass on the bedside table .

▪

Eve's room in the Dublin convent had no bedside table with a small radio on it.

▪

The two bedside tables were covered by stacks of magazines, yellowing newspapers, books and legal pads.

▪

I walked across to the bedside table and poured myself a large, large shot of whisky.

breakfast

▪

A Safe Place On the day when there was a full chamber pot under the breakfast table I decided to leave.

▪

She brought her sketchbook to the breakfast table and took watercolors out to dinner.

▪

She timed this operation very carefully, applying the glue just as her father was getting up from the breakfast table .

▪

Many parents will admit that before the takeoff they read Jessica stories to their kids over the breakfast table .

▪

He had actually slumped down at the breakfast table before he became aware of Kelly's presence.

▪

I come to the breakfast table one morning, trying to shake the effects of a night of work.

▪

When she reached the breakfast table , Silas, Matt and Doreen were already seated at it.

▪

Do you like to lounge in bed on weekends reading the newspaper or would you rather have coffee at the breakfast table ?

card

▪

Their occasional evenings at the card table with the Youngs were one of John's few outside pleasures.

▪

Does it mean there is no shortage of card tables , as we all feared?

▪

Here a pair of 1850 card tables are for sale at up to Pounds 10,000 and a Louis XVI-style suite, £5,000.

▪

Inside there were card tables and chairs, overstuffed couches and simple kitchen equipment.

▪

A friend spent some time recently looking for a card table .

▪

Along the right wall were two card tables pushed together, covered with white paper cloths for serving refreshments.

▪

But apparently it is not flush with card tables .

▪

The rest of the team is sitting at card tables set up in the living room.

coffee

▪

Her big-boned body felt clumsy and she placed the tray on the coffee table with a loud clatter.

▪

Alice clutched the brandy glass, then set it down on the coffee table .

▪

Paperbacks in general had pushed aside the hardback, except for the specialized and coffee table markets.

▪

There are like hundreds more that are going to be in a coffee table book by the end of the year.

▪

Use better quality wood and you can turn it into a coffee table .

▪

He tapped Alice lightly on the knee with the newspaper and tossed it on the coffee table in front of her.

▪

They were in a rest area, with comfortable chairs and sofas arranged round coffee tables .

▪

Auster put the check on the coffee table , as if to say the matter had been settled.

dinner

▪

I want to be able to sit with friends around a dinner table and not think about what I am doing.

▪

Politics was discussed at the dinner table every night, and in 1960, the Kennedy-Nixon presidential contest divided his parents.

▪

Over lunch and dinner tables , at parties, and in various informal groupings, the Labour revisionists decided what to do.

▪

The dinner table had become our favorite battleground.

▪

Mildly irritated, he returned to the dinner table .

▪

Before the week is over, she will make several more shopping trips to put food on the dinner table .

▪

Wine glasses will look effective arranged down a long dinner table , alternating single large blooms with groups of tiny flowers.

▪

No speaking at the dinner table .

dressing

▪

All we took from our own home was a dressing table and a small chest of drawers.

▪

He slammed his hand down on the top of the dressing table , causing some of the bottles to topple over.

▪

I left it on her dressing table with a note.

▪

Beneath this mirror stood Miranda's surprisingly feminine dressing table , skirted in spotted white muslin frills.

▪

Even the few pots of make-up on the blue-flowered dressing table seemed to be standing to attention.

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She put them in the dressing table drawer with the belt and then pulled on the new silk nightdress.

▪

His wife liked little trinkets for her dressing table .

▪

A vast wardrobe in walnut, a chest of drawers, a tall-boy and a dressing table with a swing mirror.

kitchen

▪

They were still sitting at the kitchen table .

▪

At four in the morning, hunched over the kitchen table , he made lists.

▪

Just quietly leave a picture of Danniella Westbrook's disintegrating nose on the kitchen table .

▪

I felt about on the oilcloth that covered the kitchen table .

▪

She and Alice had sat opposite each other, across the kitchen table , the teapot between them.

▪

He sat down at the kitchen table .

▪

This was taking place at the kitchen table .

lamp

▪

She could put it beside the wooden table lamp on the cupboard by the door.

▪

This doctor had no projector, no screen, but had a table lamp to which I could hold up the slides.

▪

However, table lamps aren't the right solution if you are a regular bedtime reader.

▪

I sat down and he turned on a table lamp .

▪

He had asked the questions at every interrogation but always from behind the sanctuary of a powerful table lamp .

▪

She reached over and turned on a table lamp .

▪

The lacquered fibreboard coffee table above costs £20, the metal and glass table lamp £17.70.

▪

The room was half dark; only the little table lamp was on beside the bed, with its orange parchment shade.

league

▪

Britain lags behind its competitors in every measure and is bottom of the league table .

▪

Schools with an intake of troubled poor children struggle in the league tables , lose children and lose money.

▪

This will probably have a worse risk-benefit trade off than the formalised use of league tables .

▪

Additional complexities are involved if league tables contain studies from several countries.

▪

Testing and league tables were established for the consumer and were supposed to make schools more accountable to parents.

▪

I return to the setting out of league tables .

▪

That's why we're so very alarmed at the Government's new league tables .

trestle

▪

In the centre would be several lines of trestle tables carrying cages for chicken, ducks and geese with a few tame rabbits.

▪

I expected them to be together when I arrived, sitting around the trestle table in the big kitchen.

▪

The trestle tables down each side were stained with wine and strewn with the stale remains of various meals.

▪

We'd set up our white trestle table and lay out the syringes.

▪

Down the hall on each side were long trestle tables covered in the costliest silk.

▪

The Marmite and plum jam sandwiches were already curling on the trestle table under the walnut tree.

▪

Behind the familiar trestle table with its grey army blanket, sat the commanding officer flanked by two others of lesser rank.

▪

A large, bare room with big trestle tables in the centre and benches along the walls.

water

▪

When the water drops, the substances drift back along the passageways and soak into the water table .

▪

Meanwhile, the draining of the small rivers for irrigation has lowered the water table in the region.

▪

These conditions are best met in low-lying areas that were once marshland, and which still lie above a plentiful water table .

▪

A four-year drought in East Anglia and extra demands for water from a burgeoning local population have lowered the water table .

▪

He says the problem is the water table has fallen too low.

▪

In very hot weather, the workers descend tunnels that go deep into the ground to the water table .

▪

But a few bad ones-where the water table is low-can take an hour's worth of pumping.

▪

Pumping water from an aquifer lowers the water table .

■ VERB

clear

▪

The bloke with the paper hat comes round with this trolley thing to clear the tables .

▪

She shook her head, cleared the table , dropping off stuff behind the counter, talking some to her father.

▪

At that very moment, a waiter turned abruptly from clearing the next table and crashed into Loretta.

▪

He was happy to clear the table but insisted on talking nonstop as he worked.

▪

He turned to help her clear the table .

▪

The preacher pushed his plate away and Lottie rose to clear the table .

▪

Well, he seemed to have cheered up, thought Ruth, clearing the table .

▪

Now she moved from booth to booth, clearing each table .

lay

▪

For some days the note lay untouched on the table .

▪

The parcel still lay on the table , and both girls had stood up.

▪

Then I hear Gary returning and I go down to lay the table .

▪

The Constitution lay on the table for signature.

▪

The dining room was empty apart from a couple of staff members who were laying tables for breakfast.

▪

The recipe book lay on the table .

▪

I should go down and lay the table , thought Marion.

▪

Let's lay the table for tea.

set

▪

The room was dark; the only light was a splash from the anglepoise lamp set on the table beside her.

▪

A classic for only £25.95. Set a splendid table with our 24-piece, stainless-steel cutlery set from Viners.

▪

The bird collected wood, the mouse made the fire and set the table , and the sausage cooked the food.

▪

After that we set the dining table and served the lunch we had brought.

▪

A soft November swell has set the tables rattling metallically at one another across the bar.

▪

Mom put the knife where Dad always sits when she set the table .

turn

▪

Is this what women became if afforded the luxury of turned tables ?

▪

That would certainly turn the tables , Blue thinks, that would certainly stand the whole business on its head.

▪

Isn't it nice to see a couple turning the tables on a double-glazing salesman?

▪

Women shrieked and ran at the sight of pistols, and men turned over tables to hide.

▪

Especially when such a rider turns the tables .

▪

That turns the tables on movie ratings.

▪

And now Lego has turned the tables and made a car.

▪

So much for turning the tables .

PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES

drink sb under the table

▪

He was 24, highly intelligent, could drink Malc under the table and had a dry, lightning wit.

nest of tables/boxes etc

▪

Charles Forster, prosecuting, said Ganguly had stolen a nest of tables and was seen by police.

▪

The Anglo-Nubians posed like a nest of tables by the ropes.

put/lay your cards on the table

▪

If they're willing to put all their cards on the table and negotiate, that's good.

▪

If we want to reach an agreement, we'll have to lay all our cards on the table.

▪

They're willing to put all their cards on the table and negotiate.

▪

Come on, you can lay your cards on the table in this house.

▪

The new rules appear to encourage parties to lay their cards on the table and facilitate early settlements.

set the table

▪

Could you help me set the table?

▪

A soft November swell has set the tables rattling metallically at one another across the bar.

▪

But come on, set the table.

▪

She set the table and began breakfast.

▪

She ran when she made the beds, ran when she set the table.

▪

The bird collected wood, the mouse made the fire and set the table, and the sausage cooked the food.

▪

The servants setting the tables ready for supper were summarily dismissed.

▪

The smoke was broken off the cabin chimney where she had dropped it while setting the table eighteen years ago.

▪

While this cooked Baucis set the table with her trembling old hands.

the dinner table

▪

Many of the photographs are not suitable for the dinner table.

the periodic table

the top of the table

▪

In the top of the table clash, Wroxham defeated Wisbech 1-0 in front of the largest League crowd of the season, 1,011.

▪

Llanidloes beat the rain and a determined Cound side by four wickets to move clear at the top of the table.

▪

Malik's brilliant form took him to the top of the table for the tour with a total of 1,184 runs.

▪

Sir John eased himself into his great chair at the top of the table and gloomily reflected on the past.

wait tables

▪

I spent the summer waiting tables.

EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES

▪

Table 18 shows the relationship between education and voting practices.

▪

the dining room table

EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS

▪

A single bed sheet makes a good-sized tablecloth for an average rectangular table and you can choose exactly the colour you want.

▪

All of it was sold from commercial operations so compact that they frequently fitted on a two-foot-square folding television table .

▪

He led them, a procession of six, to a table right next to a platform.

▪

He puts it flat on the table and opens the cover and shows me the copyright.

▪

Helium, the next element in the periodic table , contains two electrons encircling a nucleus containing two protons.

▪

I hurried back to the table and sat down.

▪

She looked down at the kitchen table .

II. verb

COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS

■ NOUN

amendment

▪

It would imply that Labour was ill-advised in ever tabling the amendment , and in believing it to undermine the opt-out.

▪

Both Texas senators, Phil Gramm and Hutchison, voted against tabling the amendment because they opposed the measures.

▪

He anticipated that the government might table amendments to the Bill as it passes through parliament.

▪

The Opposition have tabled a cluster of amendments .

bill

▪

He anticipated that the government might table amendments to the Bill as it passes through parliament.

▪

The committee voted 17-9 to table the bill .

motion

▪

Mr. Renton I know that the hon. Gentleman tabled an early-day motion on the subject a short time ago.

▪

The move came after a vote by regents indefinitely tabling a motion to rescind their July 20 vote revising admissions policies.

proposal

▪

Baldwin tabled proposals which involved payments of £34 million a year.

question

▪

If the hon. Gentleman wants to table a question or write to me, I shall be glad to enlarge upon that.

▪

Having tabled my question two weeks ago according to the procedures of the House, I have not yet received a reply.

▪

Speaking of that, I wonder just what the hon. Gentleman had in mind when he tabled this question .

▪

I have tabled parliamentary questions about that, but I have received no proper answers.

▪

He has tabled a question on the issue for tomorrow's council meeting.