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A teapoy is an item of furniture. The word is of
A teapoy is an item of furniture. The word is of India
India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...
n origin, and was originally used to describe a three-legged table, literally meaning "three feet" in Hindi.OED
The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the principal historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP), a University of Oxford publishing house. The dictionary, which published its first editio ...
, ''teapoy'', etymology: from Hindi ''tīn'' three + Persian. ''pāï'' foot.
By erroneous association with the word "tea" in the middle of the 19th century, it is also used to describe a table with a container for tea, or a table for holding a tea service. In the 19th century, the word was also sometimes applied to a large porcelain
Porcelain (), also called china, is a ceramic material made by heating Industrial mineral, raw materials, generally including kaolinite, in a kiln to temperatures between . The greater strength and translucence of porcelain, relative to oth ...
or earthenware
Earthenware is glazed or unglazed Vitrification#Ceramics, nonvitreous pottery that has normally been fired below . Basic earthenware, often called terracotta, absorbs liquids such as water. However, earthenware can be made impervious to liquids ...
tea caddy
A tea caddy is a box, jar, canister, or other receptacle used to store tea. When first introduced to Europe from Asia, tea was extremely expensive, and kept under lock and key. The containers used were often expensive and decorative, to fit in w ...
, and more frequently to the small bottles, often of enamel, which fitted into receptacles in the caddy and actually contained the tea.
Teapoys were small three-legged tables with a tabletop turning into a shallow box by 1820s that turned into a tea chest by the middle of the 19th century, at the same time woods (rosewood
Rosewood is any of a number of richly hued hardwoods, often brownish with darker veining, but found in other colours. It is hard, tough, strong, and dense. True rosewoods come from trees of the genus '' Dalbergia'', but other woods are often ca ...
, mahogany
Mahogany is a straight- grained, reddish-brown timber of three tropical hardwood species of the genus ''Swietenia'', indigenous to the AmericasBridgewater, Samuel (2012). ''A Natural History of Belize: Inside the Maya Forest''. Austin: Universit ...
, walnut
A walnut is the edible seed of any tree of the genus '' Juglans'' (family Juglandaceae), particularly the Persian or English walnut, '' Juglans regia''. They are accessory fruit because the outer covering of the fruit is technically an i ...
) were supplemented by the papier-mâché
file:JacmelMardiGras.jpg, upright=1.3, Mardi Gras papier-mâché masks, Haiti
Papier-mâché ( , , - the French term "mâché" here means "crushed and ground") is a versatile craft technique with roots in ancient China, in which waste paper is s ...
, resulting in highly decorative designs with inlay
Inlay covers a range of techniques in sculpture and the decorative arts for inserting pieces of contrasting, often colored materials into depressions in a base object to form Ornament (art), ornament or pictures that normally are flush with the ...
s of ivory and mother-of-pearl
Nacre ( , ), also known as mother-of-pearl, is an organicinorganic composite material produced by some molluscs as an inner shell layer. It is also the material of which pearls are composed. It is strong, resilient, and iridescent.
Nacre is ...
.
See also
*Charpoy
Charpai (also, Charpaya, Charpoy, Khat, Khatla, Manja, or Manji) is a traditional woven bed used across South Asia. The name charpai is a compound of ''char'' "four" and ''pay'' "footed". Regional variations are found in Afghanistan and Pakista ...
, a bed with four legs
* Coffee table
A coffee table is a low table designed to be placed in a sitting area for convenient support of beverages, remote controls, magazines, books (especially large, illustrated coffee table books), decorative objects, and other small items.
Most cof ...
References
Sources
* {{cite book , first1 = John , last1 = Gloag , first2 = Clive , last2 = Edwards , date = 1991 , title = A Complete Dictionary of Furniture , publisher = Overlook Press , pages = 664–666 , isbn = 978-0-87951-414-3 , oclc = 1063834296 , chapter=Teapoy , url = https://books.google.com/books?id=bJ4YAAAAIAAJ Tables (furniture) Furniture