Everyday LifeGreek → English
Desk
/dɛsk/noun
A table with a flat or sloping top for writing and working.
The Greek roots
δίσκος
dískos
disc, flat plate
Literally: “flat board”
Follow a root:δίσκος9 words
The story of the word
Medieval Latin desca, a writing table, is Latin discus with the sense pulled from the round plate across to the flat board, the same Greek word that reached English separately as dish, dais and disk. English has desk from the fourteenth century, when it meant a lectern, the sloped stand a book rests on. A medieval reader would recognise a modern standing desk faster than a modern seated one.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → Medieval Latin → English
- First recorded
- 14th century
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
diskdishdaisdiscus
In a sentence
Everything on the desk was arranged at right angles, which told you enough about him.