adv. [f. TABLE sb. + -WISE.] In the manner or form of a table: in various senses. † a. ? In a rectangular shape. Obs.
c. 1425. Found. St. Bartholomew’s, 10. The Chirche he made of cumly stoonewerke tabylwyse.
b. In tabular form; tabularly: cf. TABLE sb. 10.
1611. Speed, Hist. Gt. Brit., V. v. 27. It shal not … be amisse in this place once for all, tablewise to lay down the same.
1812. G. Chalmers, Dom. Econ. Gt. Brit., 463. A Comparative State, tablewise, of our domestic, and foreign trade.
1816. Bentham, Chrestom., Wks. 1843, VIII. 7/2. The matter of the text being thus treated Table-wise.
c. Said in reference to the holy table when placed in the body of the church or chancel with its length in the direction of that of the church; opp. to altarise.
1637. J. Williams, Holy Table, 10. Your Communion-Table, when it is not used, should stand in the upper end of the Chancell, not Altar-wise but Table-wise.
1654. Evelyn, Diary, 12 July. To Magdalen College [Oxf.], where we saw the Library and Chapell, which was likewise in pontifical order, the altar onely I think turn’d table-wise.
c. 1710. Celia Fiennes, Diary (1888), 71. Their alter stood tablewise for ye Comunion just in ye middle of ye Chancell.
1881. W. R. W. Stephens, Dioc. Hist. Chichester, 194. In some it [the altar] was placed altarwise, in others tablewise.
d. In reference to a precious stone: Cut as a ‘table’ (see TABLE sb. 18, TABLE-CUT).
1727–41. Chambers, Cycl., s.v. Table, A diamond cut Table-wise.
e. In the form of a table as a piece of furniture, i.e. (placed) horizontally on supports.
1902. Munsey’s Mag., XXVI. 622/2. It was a flat, plain slab of dark gray stone, placed on pillars tablewise.
