tabular, a.
(ˈtæbjʊlə(r))
[ad. L. tabulār-is of or relating to a board or plate, f. tabula; now used in reference to many senses of table.]
1. a. Having the form of a ‘table’, tablet, or slab; flat and (usually) comparatively thin; consisting of, or tending to split into, pieces of this form, as a rock; of a short prismatic form with flat base and top, as a crystal; flat-topped, as a hill.
tabular spar, a name for wollastonite, as occurring in masses of tabular structure, or rarely in tabular crystals.
| 1656 Blount Glossogr., Tabular, wherof boards, plancks, or tables may be made, long and large. 1688 R. Holme Armoury ii. 296/1 The Persian Pye..of a dusky color: the Feet bluish, with black tabular scales. a 1728 Woodward Fossils (1729) I. 34 Nodules..that are tabular and plated. 1796 Kirwan Elem. Min. (ed. 2) I. 36 The tabular [form] which consists of plates that grow thinner and sharp at the extremities. 1802 Playfair Illustr. Hutton. Th. 295 A bed or tabular mass of whinstone..interposed between strata. 1821 Jameson Man. Mineral. 229 Associated with quartz, tabular-spar, and iron-ore. 1826 Kirby & Sp. Entomol. IV. xlvi. 332 When it is elevated on a footstalk above the dorsolum, and forms a tabular or flat surface. 1830 Lindley Nat. Syst. Bot. 210 The apex..is connected by a common tabular dilated stigma. 1850 R. G. Cumming Hunter's Life S. Afr. (1902) 144/2 Mr. Livingstone pointed out to me a range of tabular hills. 1875 Huxley in Encycl. Brit. I. 130/2 Horizontal plates..which..constitute tabular dissepiments. |
b. Painted on a ‘table’ or panel. rare.
| 1859 Gullick & Timbs Paint. 305 The uses to which the tabular or wooden pictures were applied. |
c. Geol. tabular (ice)berg, a flat-topped iceberg which has broken away from an ice shelf.
| 1840 C. Wilkes Jrnl. 20 Jan. in Narr. U.S.A. Exploration Exped. (1844) II. ix. 315 These tabular bergs are like masses of beautiful alabaster. 1848 C. Tomlinson Summer in Antarctic Regions iv. 114 Westward of this point the Vincennes met a remarkable collection of tabular icebergs. 1905 R. F. Scott Voyage of ‘Discovery’ I. iv. 118 Cook preserves the name of Ice Island in describing the long tabular berg so typical of the Southern Regions. 1958 [see ice-shelf s.v. ice n. 8]. 1979 C. Kilian Icequake viii. 133 Drifting snow and falling ice masked much of the cliff face, but it did not look like the side of a tabular berg. |
2. a. Entered in, or calculated by means of, a table or tables, as a number or quantity.
| 1710 Lond. Gaz. No. 4737/3 In this Book you have above forty thousand Tabular Numbers. 1806 Hutton Course Math. I. 40 Hence, by the rule..·1 the tabular height. This being found in the first column of the table, the corresponding tabular area is ·04088. 1837 Whewell Hist. Induct. Sc. (1857) II. 224 Uranus still deviates from his tabular place. |
b. Of the nature of, or pertaining to, a table, scheme, or synopsis; arranged in the form of a table; set down in a systematic form, as in rows and columns.
| 1816 Bentham Chrestom. 242 By means of a set of systematic and tabular diagrams. 1830 Herschel Study Nat. Phil. ii. vi. (1851) 182 A list of them in tabular order. 1832 Babbage Econ. Manuf. xix. (ed. 3) 183 A tabular view of the time occupied by each process. 1876 C. M. Davies Unorth. Lond. 67 Carefully elaborated tabular statements. |
c. Printing. (a) Applied to matter set up in the form of tables (see table-work, table n. 22).
| 1771 Luckombe Hist. Printing 283 The curious method of Tabular Writing..is practised in England to greater perfection than in any other Nation. 1879 Lond. Compositors' Sc. Prices, Tabular and Table Work is matter set up in three or more columns and reading across the page. 1899 Daily News 11 Sept. 9/5 Compositor.—All-round jobbing, book, and tabular hand. |
† (b) (Printing) from wooden blocks or tablets, on which the matter is cut. Obs. rare.
| 1816 Singer Hist. Cards ii. 75 As far as regards tabular printing, there is no reason to doubt that the Europeans derived their knowledge of printing from the Chinese. |