tabula

noun

1. (countable, uncountable)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.”

   “A.D. Fragment of an inscription in a tabula carved in the rock.”

   “The date is written above the tabula and down the right side, which is worn; the main text is written within the tabula, with each line of verse separated by an incised line.”

   “The front side has a raised border; it is decorated with a tabula between two shields.”

   “The lower profile is finished from the first niche (N1) up to the second tabula (T2), but to the west of T2, at O10, only its astragal is complete.”

2. (countable, uncountable)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.”

   “Another tabula represents the rate of morbidity according to different organs and age groups.”

   “This may be done on the spot, or the initial tabula(e) may be delineated prior to the meeting (e.g., via an agreed agenda or results from a prior session). The ongoing course of tabulation will then be an open-ended process alternating between propagation of tabulae and discursive refinement of the emerging tabular structure.”

   “The tabula displays that interpretation of planning content has more focus in the Nordic group of countries (except Iceland), than in the Baltic group – even if the countries have chosen different tools.”

3. (countable, uncountable)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.”

   “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.”

   “The soldiers who dedicated the tabula to the empress might have had a personal connection with her, but if so, it was not a typical relationship.”

   “However, proclamation was to be made of the offence and the misdeed inscribed on a 'tabula' in the Guildhall, so that citizens and other inhabitants might be warned not to employ him in any spiritual office.”

4. (countable, uncountable)A writing-tablet, slate, or similar medium on which to write.

   “On the tabula of the mind she tried to write the word.”

   “Can we send them a message? With your tabula perhaps, the way Olwen did when Moira needed you?”

   “The mind is a tabula to engrave the story of reality's cataclysmic impacts, the individual—a tool through which history confides it to mankind.”

5. (countable, uncountable)A frontal; a drapery for an altar.

   “Another tabula in the Textile Museum in Washington D.C. probably belonged to the same textile.”

   “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.”

   “Another tabula ( cat.89 ) recalls the naturalistic concept of the classic Graeco-Roman portrait, in widespread use up to the 4th or 5th century.”

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.”

   “A bronze mirror from about 200 B.C. depicts a young man and a young woman playing tabula.”

   “Two men hunched in silence over black and white counters on a tabula board which had been carved around the edge with scenes of warriors at arms.”

   “Such was his urgency, he entered the healers' wagon without warning those inside, which was a mistake, for Lanna was playing tabula with Ramon on the rear pallet – and both were naked.”

7. (countable, uncountable)One of the transverse plants 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.”

   “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 sclerodermata, in some of the Alcyonaria, and in a great many of the Rugosa.”

   “Frontal with a tabula, with a crescent of small, slit-like pores.”

   “Fig. 12.5. Tabulate, rugose and scleractinian corals. i. Portion of a colony of Favosites. Note the very minute corallites closely packed together. ii. The chain coral Halysites, one corallite partially cut away to expose tabulae.”