Table (verb)
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A table is a piece of furniture with a horizontal surface supported above the ground. One logical extension, namely use of to table, with the meaning to place on a table, is seldom used in a literal sense. Rather, it often evokes the imagined placement on a table of an (actual or figurative) document stating a proposal.
Such placement could facilitate either examining or storing the document (and likewise the proposal embodied by it). Thus in deliberative bodies, "tabling" a proposed measure leaves room for contrary intentions; those bodies' rules of order, or simply accepted tradition, may specify which of these is implied.
In fact, the meaning does vary among English-speaking countries:
- In British English, to "table" a measure is to propose it for consideration, as in bringing it to the legislative table. See British Parliament for examples.
- In American English, by contrast, to "table" a measure is to postpone its further consideration until a later date, as in leaving it on the table. See Congress of the United States for examples.