A console table is a table whose top surface is supported by
corbel
In architecture, a corbel is a structural piece of stone, wood or metal keyed into and projecting from a wall to carry a wikt:superincumbent, bearing weight, a type of bracket (architecture), bracket. A corbel is a solid piece of material in t ...
s or
bracket
A bracket is either of two tall fore- or back-facing punctuation marks commonly used to isolate a segment of text or data from its surroundings. They come in four main pairs of shapes, as given in the box to the right, which also gives their n ...
s rather than by the usual four legs. It is thus similar to a supported
shelf and is not designed to serve as a stand-alone surface. It is frequently used as
pier table (which may have legs of any variety), to abut a
pier wall.
The term
console
Console may refer to:
Computing and video games
* System console, a physical device to operate a computer
** Virtual console, a user interface for multiple computer consoles on one device
** Command-line interface, a method of interacting with ...
derives from the compound
Latin
Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
verb ''consolor'' "to alleviate, lighten", from the verb ''solor'', "to assuage, soothe, relieve, mitigate", plus the preposition ''con/com/cum'', "with".
[Cassell's Latin Dictionary, Marchant, J. R. V, & Charles, Joseph F., (Eds.), Revised Edition, 1928]
References
{{commons category, Console tables
Tables (furniture)