English

A typewriter on a desk

Noun

desk ‎(plural desks)

1. A table, frame, or case, usually with sloping top, but often with flat top, for the use of writers and readers. It often has a drawer or repository underneath.
   • 1918, W. B. Maxwell, chapter 5, in The Mirror and the Lamp:

     Here, in the transept and choir, where the service was being held, one was conscious every moment of an increasing brightness; colours glowing vividly beneath the circular chandeliers, and the rows of small lights on the choristers' desks flashed and sparkled in front of the boys' faces, deep linen collars, and red neckbands.

2. A reading table or lectern to support the book from which the liturgical service is read, differing from the pulpit from which the sermon is preached; also (especially in the United States), a pulpit. Hence, used symbolically for the clerical profession.

Hypernyms

• furniture

Coordinate terms

• chair

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

desk ‎(third-person singular simple present desks, present participle desking, simple past and past participle desked)

1. To shut up, as in a desk; to treasure.

Anagrams

• keds
• sked