Forms: 4–6 tablette, 5 tabulette, -elet(te, (taplet), 5–6 tablett, tabellet(t, 6 tabillette, Sc. teblet, tabullatte, 6– tablet. [a. OF. tablete (13th c.), F. tablette, dim. of table, = Pr. tauleta, Sp. tableta, Pg. taboleta, It. tavoletta, med.L. tabuleta (1376 in Du Cange): see TABLE sb. and -ET, -ETTE.]
1. A small, flat, and comparatively thin piece of stone, metal, wood, ivory, or other hard material, artificially shaped for some purpose; a small slab.
a. A small slab of stone or metal bearing or intended to bear an inscription or carving, esp. one affixed to a wall as a memorial; also applied to a flat surface cut in a rock for the same purpose.
c. 1315. Shoreham, iii. 67. Ope two tablettes of ston … He hys [= them] wrot, Moyses by-tok.
1447. Bokenham, Seyntys (Roxb.), 254. A taplet of marbyl [he] held in hys honde.
1649. G. Daniel, Trinarch., Hen. V., cclxi. His single Honour needs noe Fret of Names … To glimer ore the Tablet.
1700. Prior, Carmen Sæculare, 167. When … The pillar’d marble, and the tablet brass, Mouldering, drop the victor’s praise.
1851. Layard, Pop. Acc. Discov. Nineveh, Introd. 13. The most important trilingual inscriptions hitherto discovered are those … in the rock tablet of Behistun. Ibid., vii. 163. Four tablets have been cut in the rock.
1870. F. R. Wilson, Ch. Lindisf., 30. The mural tablets are also numerous.
b. A slab or panel, usually of wood, for a picture or inscription. Votive tablet: an inscribed panel anciently hung in a temple in fulfilment of a vow, e.g., after deliverance from shipwreck or dangerous illness. Chiefly arch. or Hist.
1581. Pettie, Guazzo’s Civ. Conv., I. (1586), 30 b. Others, with Tablets and pictures use to represent men and women in some infamous and dishonest act.
1695. Dryden, trans. Du Fresnoy’s Art of Painting, 83. Pliny … tells us … thro’ all Greece, the young Gentlemen learn’d before all other things to design upon Tablets of Boxen-wood.
1782. V. Knox, Ess., lxiii. 274. Apelles used to say, that Protogenes knew not when to take his hand from the tablet which he was painting.
1851. D. Wilson, Preh. Ann. (1863), II. III. ii. 40. A votive tablet in honour of the Legate.
1869. Lecky, Europ. Mor., I. iii. 382. The votive tablets of those who escaped are suspended in the temple, while those who were shipwrecked are forgotten.
c. A small smooth inflexible or stiff sheet or leaf for writing upon; usually, one of a pair or set hinged or otherwise fastened together; anciently, of wood, or other material, covered with wax, written upon with a style, and used for correspondence, legal documents, etc.; in later times, of ivory, cardboard, or the like, carried in the pocket and used for memoranda; hence sometimes, in pl. tablets, applied vaguely to a note-book. Formerly called tables (TABLE sb. 2 b).
1611. Shaks., Cymb., V. iv. 109. This Tablet lay vpon his Brest, wherein Our pleasure, his full Fortune, doth confine.
1780. Mme. D’Arblay, Diary, 29 April. Had I not kept memorandums in my tablets, I could not possibly give any account of our proceedings.
1836. Marryat, Japhet, xl. I took out my tablets, and wrote down the address.
1860. Rawlinson, Herodotus, VII. § 239 IV. 196. Demaratus … took a pair of tablets, and clearing the wax away from them, wrote what the king was purposing to do upon the wood.
1883. Chamb. Jrnl., 28 April, 266/2. There were unearthed nearly forty thousand inscribed tablets of unbaked clay.
1885. Bible (R. V.), Isa. viii. 1. Take thee a great tablet, and write upon it with the pen of a man.
d. In general or various applications, as a slab or tile, used in roofing or flooring, a flat piece in some mechanism, etc.; in quot. 1782 applied to playing-cards.
c. 1440. Pallad. on Husb., VI. 195. Now brode and thynne Tilette or tabulette of marbul stoon.
1698. Fryer, Acc. E. India & P., 395. A Bed made … on the Tablets upon the Tops of their Houses.
1782. Cowper, Progr. Err., 170. The painted tablets, dealt and dealt again.
1842. I. Williams, Baptistery, I. (1874), 1. Quaint tablets rang’d some antique hearth around, Blue Holland porcelain, all rudely wrought.
† 2. An ornament of precious metal or jewelery of a flat form, worn about the person. Obs. [Cf. med.L. tabula and tabuletus in Du Cange.]
c. 1400. Maundev. (1839), 234. Euerych of hem bereth a tablett of Iaspere or of Iuory or of cristall.
1504. Will Goodyear (Somerset Ho.). My tablet of golde that I was wonte to were abowte my nek.
1542. Acc. Lord H. Treas. Scotl., VIII. 58. Chenȝeis, tabullattis, tergattis, bracelattis, ringis.
1546. Inv. Ch. Goods (Surtees), 86. A great tablett of golde havyng in yt the ymage of Our Lady.
1583. Golding, Calvin on Deut. cxxvi. 774. These great lords & braue lads which wil needs weare tablets at their neckes yt is to say sumptuous Iewels for folke to gase at a great way off.
1611. Bible, Exod. xxxv. 22. And they came both men and women,… and brought bracelets, and earerings, and rings, & tablets, all iewels of gold.
c. 1620. Z. Boyd, Zion’s Flowers (1855), 31. The tablets and the rings made for the eare.
3. A small flat or compressed piece of some solid confection, drug, or the like; a lozenge of flattened (originally rectangular) form; a flat cake of soap.
1582. Hester, Secr. Phiorav., I. xxix. 34. Giuing them euery mornyng one dragme of good Sope in tablettes accordyng to our inuention.
1626. Bacon, Sylva, § 970. It is yet in use, to wear little bladders of quicksilver, or tablets of arsenic, as preservatives against the plague.
1655. Culpepper, Riverius, I. ii. 15. You may often use … these Tablets or Lozenges following.
1704. J. Harris, Lex. Techn., I. Tablets, or solid Electuaries, are much the same with Lozenges.
1890. Lancet, 1 Nov., 39 (Advt., B. W. & Co.). The Bicarbonate of Potash and Bicarbonate of Soda ‘Tablets’ or ‘Tabloids’ prove efficacious in dyspepsia.
1898. Allbutt’s Syst. Med., V. 996. [Trinitrine may be administered] in the form of tablets.
1902. Times, 30 March, 12/3. At this date the plaintiffs had used the word ‘tablet’ to denote compressed drugs,… but Mr. Wellcome set about finding a new word, and invented the word ‘tabloid.’
Mod. A tablet of chocolate; a tablet of soap.
b. Hence, Sc. (taiblet), hardbake or almond toffy made in tablets.
c. 1900. Wee Macgregor, i. 2. I want taiblet. Ibid., 5.
† 4. Short for tablet diamond: see sense 8. Obs.
1519. Lett. & Pap. Hen. VIII., III. No. 463 (P.R.O.). Having an owche at the end wherin is sett a fair table balas with iiij fair diamauntes wherof ij great poynted dyamaundes, oon tablet and oon losenge. Ibid. iiij diamauntes wherof ij poynted and ij tablettes.
5. Glass-making. = TABLE sb. 15 b. ? Obs.
1688. [see TABLE sb. 15 b].
6. Arch. = TABLE sb. 12 a, b.
1823. P. Nicholson, Pract. Build., 444. A Tablet is a projection, fixed in a wall, with one face parallel to the surface.
1875. Lewis & Street, in Encycl. Brit., II. 390/1. The crowning tablet or fillet [of an Egyptian pylon or portico] is quite plain and unornamented.
7. Anat. = TABLE sb. 16.
1891. in Cent. Dict.
8. attrib. and Comb.: tablet-book, a set of tablets for writing on; tablet check, in Telegraphy: see quot.; † tablet diamond = TABLE DIAMOND; † tablet jewel, ? = sense 2; tablet-letter, an ancient letter written on a tablet; tablet tea, tea made up in tablets (sense 3); tablet-writing, writing on tablets.
1896. Boscawen, Bible & Mon., v. 110. The series of tablets when complete consisted of twelve *tablet-books.
1876. Preece & Sivewright, Telegraphy, 293. Every circuit … is supplied with a form called a *Tablet check, upon which each message as it goes off is ticked.
1530. Lett. & Pap. Hen. VIII., IV. No. 6789 (P.R.O.). Rynges … oon with a tablet dyamount. [Cf. sense 4 above.]
1598. Yong, Diana, 91. Two iewels curiouslie enchased with tablet Diamonds.
1599. Minsheu, Sp. Dict., Dial., 15. Chaines of Ieat, Amber, or such like, *tablet Iewels, girdles [etc.].
1899. T. Nicol, Archaeol. of Bible, v. 186. Seven of the *tablet letters are from the Governor of Jerusalem.
1891. Daily News, 5 June, 5/6. *‘Tablet tea’ and ‘brick tea,’ so familiar in Russia,… are apt to be confounded by outsiders. The former … is made of the finest tea-dust procurable…. It is manufactured by steam machinery, with the aid of steel moulds, under great pressure.
1905. J. Orr, Probl. O. T., Notes, 525. Cuneiform *tablet-writing probably in some measure continued after the settlement in Canaan.
