Jump to:

• mensa
  mensa

  noun

  the flat stone forming the top of the altar in a Roman Catholic church.
• Mensa
  Mensa

  noun

  an international fellowship organization for people with IQ's in the top 2 percent of the general population.

mensa

¹ American  

[men-suh] / ˈmɛn sə /

noun

plural

mensas, mensae,

genitive

Mensae

1. Also called altar stone.  Also called altar slab,.  the flat stone forming the top of the altar in a Roman Catholic church.

2. (initial capital letter) the Table, a southern constellation near Octans.

---

Mensa ² American  

[men-suh] / ˈmɛn sə /

noun

1. an international fellowship organization for people with IQ's in the top 2 percent of the general population.

---

Mensa ¹ British  

/ ˈmɛnsə /

noun

1. a faint constellation in the S hemisphere lying between Hydrus and Volans and containing part of the Large Magellanic Cloud

---

Mensa ² British  

/ ˈmɛnsə /

noun

1. an international society, membership of which is restricted to people whose intelligence test scores exceed those expected of 98 per cent of the population

---

Other Word Forms

• Mensan
  noun

Etymology

Origin of mensa¹

First recorded in 1685–95; from Latin mēnsa “table”

Origin of Mensa²

From the Latin word mēnsa table, symbolizing the original conception of the society, “a round table where no one has precedence”

Example Sentences

Veniet ergo ab ista parasitica mensa ad hanc regiam et nos in epistulis scribendis adiuvabit.”

From The Student's Companion to Latin Authors by Middleton, George

There was nothing whatever ordained or assigned for his episcopal mensa, by which the bishop might live; for he had not even a house of his own.

From St. Bernard of Clairvaux's Life of St. Malachy of Armagh by Lawlor, Hugh Jackson

Would not the discomfort of meals eaten with a companion who could swallow nothing justify a divorce a mensa?

From Somehow Good by De Morgan, William Frend

Ab eadem parte epistolae ... ampullae vitreae vini et aquae, cum pelvicula et manutergio mundo in fenestella, seu in parva mensa ad haec praeparata.

From The Irish Ecclesiastical Record, Volume 1, November 1864 by

He plunged into the declination of mensa with the fervour of a convert.

From The Soul of a Child by Björkman, Edwin