'Table' is Latin for 'a flat board' — from 'tabula.' It displaced Germanic 'board' (still in 'room and board').
A piece of furniture with a flat top supported by one or more legs, used for eating, writing, or working.
From Old English 'tabule' and Old French 'table,' both from Latin 'tabula' meaning 'a board, plank, flat piece.' The Latin word originally referred to any flat slab — a writing tablet, a gaming board, a painted panel — not specifically a piece of furniture. The furniture sense developed in late Latin and became dominant in the Romance languages, from which English inherited it. The older Germanic