tabletop

American  

[tey-buhl-top] / ˈteɪ bəlˌtɒp /

noun

tabletops plural

1. a surface forming or suggesting the top of a table.

2. a photograph of an arrangement of objects on top of a table.

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adjective

1. intended for use on the top of a table or the like.

2. noting or relating to an arrangement of objects, especially miniatures or models, as would be appropriate to the top of a table.

3. noting or relating to a type of game that requires the physical presence of players and the manipulation of game pieces, in contrast to video games.

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• tabletops
  plural

Etymology

Origin of tabletop

First recorded in 1800–10; table + top ¹

Example Sentences

In 1946, the wildly prolific Hungarian mathematician Paul Erdős asked, in essence, how to place dots on a tabletop so that the greatest number of pairs of dots are the same distance apart.

From Slate • Jun. 22, 2026

Writing in Nature, the team reports the first integrated ultrafast laser capable of matching the performance of traditional tabletop femtosecond lasers.

From Science Daily • Jun. 4, 2026

Hasbro attributed the higher revenue in part to continued strength in tabletop game Magic: The Gathering.

From The Wall Street Journal • May 20, 2026

While we could spend hours in front of a screen with the latest “Zelda” title, the dice-focused tabletop role-playing game was viewed with suspicion, a ’70s-era invention that belonged to a certain subset of nerd.

From Los Angeles Times • Dec. 10, 2025

“James!” she said and pressed the book to the tabletop.

From "Book Scavenger" by Jennifer Chambliss Bertman