table, noun

Forms:
Also with initial capital.
Origin:
EnglishShow more Special use of general English table flat elevated tract of land.
The table: Table Mountain, overlooking Cape Town; the flat surface along the top of this mountain. Formerly also called the Table land.
1607 in R. Raven-Hart Before Van Riebeeck (1967) 35We brought parte of the table to the northward of the sugar lofe still opening it more and more and having given the outmost point on our starborde syde..a good birth wee stode in So.E. and So. with the high land on wch is the table.
1612 T. Best in R. Raven-Hart Before Van Riebeeck (1967) 57We and the Sallomon in the morneing stod in with the land, and sawe both the Seugar Loaffe and the Table.
1634 P. Mundy in R. Raven-Hart Before Van Riebeeck (1967) 142This hill is never uncovered with Clouds but in verie faire weather. Soe that it is an infallible rule That when the Table is Covered there succeedes dirt and raine, and contrarywise when it is uncovered.
1655 E. Terry Voy. to E.-India (1777) 13A mighty hill, (called from its form, the Table); close by which there is another hill,..called by passengers, the Sugar-loaf.
1688 G. Tachard Voy. to Siam I. 43We made the Table Land first, and it is called by that Name because the Top of it is very flat, and much resembles a Table.
1688 G. Tachard Voy. to Siam II. 64They have..huge great Apes that comes [sic] sometimes in Troops down from the Table-land into the Gardens of private Persons.
1731 G. Medley tr. of P. Kolben’s Present State of Cape of G.H. II. 14’Tis an usual Saying among Sailors approaching the Cape, as soon as they discover this cloud, The Table is cover’d, or The Cloth is laid on the Table; intimating, that they must prepare immediately for a Storm.
1773 P. Carteret in J. Hawkesworth Acct of Voy. 441At day-break on the 28th we made the Table Land of the Cape of Good Hope, and the same evening anchored in the bay.
1780 in I. Munro Narr. of Milit. Operations on Coromandel Coast (1789) 7When this [sheet of fog] appears, the natives say ‘the devil has covered his table,’ as it is an infallible sign of an approaching gale of wind from the land.
1925 H.J. Mandelbrote tr. of O.F. Mentzel’s Descr. of Cape of G.H. II. 144The wind is ushered in by a white cloud which covers the whole summit of the mountain. Its appearance causes seafaring men to mutter ‘we must hurry, the table is laid’ — a signal for either hastening back to their ship or scurrying on land.
1973 P.A. Whitney Blue Fire 113It (sc. the cloud) spread out in a layer of white over the entire table, drifting a little way down the sides so that it looked as if a tablecloth had been spread evenly over the flat top of the mountain.
1979 M. Matshoba Call Me Not a Man 110The top of the Table was covered in clouds. ‘They call that cloud the tablecloth.’
1990 P.T. Pienaar Informant, Grahamstown (now Makhanda, Eastern Cape)There are always wisps of cloud seemingly waiting to lay the Table.
The table:Table Mountain, overlooking Cape Town; the flat surface along the top of this mountain. Formerly also called the Table land.
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taal, nounn.table-cloth, nounn.
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