table (redirected from tables)

table, article of furniture employed for household or ecclesiastical purposes. Elaborately decorated tables of wood or metal were known in ancient Egypt and Assyria, and the Greeks used small tables of low construction to be placed beside a couch. During the Roman Empire massive rectangular pieces were developed, which were made of marble and supported by carved end slabs as well as square or circular forms of bronze supported on a pedestal or on legs often representing wild beasts, sphinxes, or other figures. Although small tables of various shapes, some covered with precious metals, were used during the Middle Ages, the most common form was the long trestle table that was disassembled and removed after meals. Tables of the Italian and Spanish Renaissance were rectangular with end supports braced by stretchers; they often had an arcade of columns through the center. The magnificent Farnese table of marble inlay, attributed to Vignola (Metropolitan Museum of Art), is a notable piece from this period. Tables of the Elizabethan Age were supported on bulbous legs and included the draw table, forerunner of the extension dining table. By the end of the 17th cent. the console, the gateleg, and a variety of occasional tables had come into use. Striking tables of modern workmanship include elegant, simple designs in glass and chromium or stainless steel, and in a great variety of unvarnished woods. Tables vary in size with their purpose from the smallest candlestand to the great banquet table. They are named according to the place for which they are intended (center, library, side, sofa, tavern), their use (tea, china, drawing, writing, sewing, billiard, dining), their form (folding, console, extension, parson's trestle or sawhorse, piecrust, gateleg, butterfly, drop-leaf, tilt-top, nest), period or style (Gothic, Queen Anne, Empire), or the names of designers who created distinctive types (Adam, Chippendale, Hepplewhite, Sheraton, or Phyfe).

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table

Article of furniture used in the Western world since at least the 7th century BC, consisting of a flat slab of stone, metal, wood, or glass supported by trestles, legs, or a pillar. Though tables were used in ancient Egypt, Assyria, and Greece, only during the Middle Ages, with the growing formality of life under feudalism, did tables increasingly take on social significance. Tables with attached legs appeared in the 15th century. The draw top was invented in the 16th century, making it possible to double the table length. Increasing contact with the East in the 18th century led to increasing specialization in the design of occasional tables.

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(1) A collection of adjacent fields of data. Also called an "array," tables may permanently reside in a program or be stored on disk and read at runtime. They may remain static (unchanged) or be dynamically updated. For example, tables in a disk's file system are continuously updated as data are written into the sectors (see FAT and MFT). See table lookup, decision table and HTML table.

(2) A collection of records (a file) in a relational database. See DBMS and file.

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(database)

table - A collection of records in a relational database.