tabula

Noun

tabula (countable and uncountable, plural tabulae or (archaic) tabulæ)

1. A plate or frame on which a title or inscription is carved.
   • The tabula is here seen to have an irregular structure of coarse mesh whose interstices are occupied by a finer mesh.1937, Kyancutta Museum, Memoirs - Issues 4-6, page 103
   • A.D. Fragment of an inscription in a tabula carved in the rock.1982, H. W. Pleket, R. S. Stroud, Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum [SEG]: 1978, page 227
2. A table, index, or list of data.
   • Another tabula on third fly-leaf, and some writing in a later hand. Titles and initials throughout in red and blue.1908, James Maurice Wilson, Cosmo Alexander Gordon, Early Compotus Rolls of the Priory of Worcester, page 28
   • Another tabula represents the rate of morbidity according to different organs and age groups.1962, Neoplasma, page 221
3. A legal record.
   • However, as Ugolinus is known as an industrious, honourable man, acquainted with his subject, and who cannot easily be suspected of fraud, there is nothing against assuming the probability that at the publication of his work he had really before him such a tabula.1850, Moses Margoliouth, A Pilgrimage to the Land of My Fathers - Volume 1, page 144
   • On the other hand, the acquisition of the legal estate merely as a tabula is usually not a transaction for value, and here at any rate the fact that it is conveyed in breach of an express trust will prevail to take it away.1912, Roland Moffatt Perowne Willoughby, The Distinctions and Anomalies Arising Out of the Equitable Doctrine of the Legal Estate, page 74
4. A writing-tablet, slate, or similar medium on which to write.
   • On the tabula of the mind she tried to write the word.2010, John Lawton, A Lily of the Field
   • Can we send them a message? With your tabula perhaps, the way Olwen did when Moira needed you?2014, Alyxandra Harvey, A Breath of Frost, page 403
5. A frontal; a drapery for an altar.
   • Another tabula in the Textile Museum in Washington D.C. probably belonged to the same textile.2004, Sabine Schrenk, Textilien des Mittelmeerraumes aus spätantiker bis tru:hisiamischer Zeit, Abegg-Stiftung, page 470
   • Another tabula in Paris shows the same characteristics but even more progressively stylized and is therefore dated to the Arabian period, eighth to ninth century.2005, Peter Noever, Angela Völker, Fragile remnants, page 57
6. (historical, uncountable) An ancient Roman game similar to backgammon that was played on a board with 24 divisions.
   • Readers may like to make a tabula board and try a simple game from France using two cubic dice.1974, Games & Puzzles - Issues 21-31, page 5
   • A bronze mirror from about 200 B.C. depicts a young man and a young woman playing tabula.2002, Steve Craig, Sports and Games of the Ancients, page 113
7. One of the transverse plates found in the calicles of certain corals and hydroids.
   • The tabulæ may be well developed, approximately horizontal, remote plates, as is usually the case in Zaphrentis and Amplexus, or they may anastomoze in various ways, and become so intimately connected with one another as to give rise to a species of vesicular tissue.1877, “Corals”, in The Encyclopædia Britannica: a Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and General Literature, 9th edition, volume VI, Edinburgh: Adam and Charles Black, page 383
   • When fully developed (fig. 66), they are transverse plates, which extend completely across the visceral chamber, and divide it into a series of stories placed one above the other, the only living portion of the coral being above the last formed tabula. Tabulæ are found in various of the Zoantharia...1879, Henry Alleyne Nicholson, A Manual of Palæontology for the Use of Students with a General Introduction on the Principles of Palæontology, 2nd edition, volume I, Edinburgh and London: William...