tableaux

Noun

tableau (plural tableaux or tableaus)

1. A striking and vivid representation or scene; a picture.
   • Stefania Chlouveraki, the project leader, stands at a long sorting table. She turns the colored fragments over and over in her fingertips. She fits each one into its place: a magnificent tableau of lions, crosses, pomegranate trees.2014 December, Paul Salopek, “Blessed. Cursed. Claimed.”, in National Geographic
2. A vivid graphic scene of a group of people or objects arranged as in a painting or bas relief sculpture.
   • Folding chairs had been placed at prudent distances, and masks were dutifully worn. An Australian Labradoodle belonging to the home’s owners strutted among the guests. Despite the breezy suburban tableau, the occasion was fraught.2020 July 30, David Zweig, “$25,000 Pod Schools: How Well-to-Do Children Will Weather the Pandemic”, in New York Times

   Synonyms:

   tableau vivant

3. (UK, broadly, dated) An arrangement of actors in static positions on stage, having the effect of pointing up a particular moment in the drama, conventionally revealed by opening tableau curtains (known as "tabs").
4. A two-dimensional array or table of data, usually numbers, of various specific kinds.
   • For the tableau shown, there are three distinct procedures (one for each standard Young tableau of shape (2,1,1) with entries 1, 2, 3, and 4) for obtaining a Young tableau.1994, Lynne M. Butler, Subgroup Lattices and Symmetric Functions, American Mathematical Society, →ISBN, page 92
5. (optimality theory) A table that shows constraint violations of a list of candidates given an input and a constraint ranking.
6. Mostly in solitaire card games, but also in other card and board games, the main area, where random cards can be arranged.

See all 8 meanings of tableau