Word.ws English Dictionary

by-table

by-table noun: a small table intended to be placed next to the wall or in the corner of a room, often in contrast to a larger (e.g. dining) table.

Noun

by-table (plural by-tables)

  1. (Scotland, obsolete) A small table intended to be placed next to the wall or in the corner of a room, often in contrast to a larger (e.g. dining) table.
    • […] hee had seene a Box of most curious worke, in-layde with Ebony and Iuory, vpon a by-Table, not farre from the Couch-Bed […]1625, John Barclay, chapter 14, in Argenis, page 229
    • This year the believer quits the by-table of ordinances, word, and sacraments in the church militant, and sits down at the high table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob;1738, Ebenezer Erskine, “The Annals of Redeeming Love”, in Works, volume 2, published 1798, page 450

Examples of by-table in a sentence

  • […] this amiable heroine snatching up his sword, which lay upon a by-table, and unsheathing it instantaneously, presented the point to his breast,1753, Tobias Smollett, chapter 14, in The Adventures of Ferdinand, Count Fathom, published 1782:
  • There was no one in the parlour beside her nurse, when Gatty went in, save her brother Joe, who was sitting at a by-table, busily engaged in arranging some fishing tackle.1823, James Hogg, The Three Perils of Woman, volume 1, page 8:

Synonyms of by-table

Forms of by-table

pluralby-tables

Origin of by-table

From by- + table.

Questions about by-table

What does by-table mean?
By-table means a small table intended to be placed next to the wall or in the corner of a room, often in contrast to a larger (e.g. dining) table.
How do you use by-table in a sentence?
[…] this amiable heroine snatching up his sword, which lay upon a by-table, and unsheathing it instantaneously, presented the point to his breast,
What part of speech is by-table?
By-table is a noun.
What is the plural of by-table?
The plural of by-table is by-tables.

Words near by-table in the dictionary

  1. by-standers
  2. by-street
  3. by-streets
  4. by-stroke
  5. by-strokes
  6. by-table
  7. by-the-book
  8. by-the-books
  9. by-the-by
  10. by-the-bye
  11. by-the-numbers

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: by-table (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “by-table.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/by-table. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.