kitchen tablen.
/ˌkɪtʃ(ᵻ)n ˈteɪbl/, U.S. /ˌkɪtʃən ˈteɪbəl/ 1. A table in a kitchen, used for food preparation, informal meals, etc.
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1614 G. Markham 2nd Bk. Eng. Husbandman ii. iv. 67 It [sc. elm] is..excellent good to make Kitchen tables of, or for boards, for the vse of Butchers.
1779 J. Moore View Society & Manners France I. ii. 16 The master must remain helpless and sprawling in bed, like a turtle on its back, upon the kitchen-table of an alderman.
1879 E. T. Freedley Home Comforts ix. 162 Work the dough into a shapely ball in the centre of the tray..; throw a cloth over all, and leave it on the kitchen table to rise.
1969 Life 7 Nov. 75 (caption) Pat Mearns sits at her kitchen table seeking words for the weekly letter she writes her husband in North Vietnam.
2020 Spectator (Nexis) 5 Dec. On Saturday night we sat around the kitchen table..and had a takeaway from the Turkish restaurant.
2. Originally U.S. The kitchen table viewed as the hub of domestic discussions, esp. about social and political issues that affect the family, household, or community.
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1935 D. T. Brown in Advance (State Teachers Coll., Oshkosh, Wisconsin) 23 May 2/5 When the moon is..golden..And gold grain in every field, They stew across kitchen tables, About the maximum yield.
1985 Washington Post 26 May a7/3 They [sc. union volunteers]..give advice and mutual support to make sure the strike isn't lost at the kitchen table when concerns about the mortgage begin to impinge on feelings of union loyalty.
2020 Ellon (Scotl.) Times (Nexis) 20 Feb. [The] NSPCC head of child safety online policy..hopes the new tool will stimulate greater debate about social media at the kitchen table.
Compounds
(Originally and chiefly North American.) C1. As a modifier, designating medical procedures performed at home or outside a clinical setting, typically using makeshift implements, for reasons of urgency or expediency (sometimes signifying procedures done illegally); as in kitchen table abortion, kitchen table operation, kitchen table surgery, etc.In quot. 1915 with reference to a surgical procedure that is simple to perform.
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1915 Western Med. Times Nov. 201/2 I..did a curettement and packed the uterus with iodoform gauze... The operation is so simple, not even requiring trained assistants that it might be termed the ‘kitchen table operation’.
1972 Free Press (Trumansburg, N.Y.) 26 Oct. Women and young girls risked their lives, and often lost them, in motel room or kitchen-table abortions.
2013 Chron. Higher Educ. (Nexis) 18 Nov. She watched a nurse's aide pull a bullet out of one boy in an off-the-books, kitchen-table surgery.
C2. As a modifier, designating businesses or occupations which are carried out from home, part-time, or on a small or amateur scale; as in kitchen table business, kitchen table entrepreneur, kitchen table start-up, etc.
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1957 Farm Q. Winter 66/1 A spoonful of cream, dropped casually into a jar of old-fashioned horseradish, made a rich man of Ellis Huntsinger and expanded a kitchen table industry into a national organization.
1969 Lima (Ohio) News 16 Nov. d11/6 He suggests getting a tax break by starting ‘a kitchen table business’—making or distributing something at home—which immediately qualifies you for some major tax deductions.
1998 Mod. Maturity Jan. 59/1 Kitchen-table entrepreneurs pick up some advantages in this legislation.
2014 Daily Tel. 15 Aug. 34/3 Home businesses are to be given a boost by the Government as part of a drive to encourage more kitchen table start-ups.
C3. As a modifier, relating to social and political issues that affect ordinary families, households, or communities (cf. sense 2) or designating such issues, as in kitchen table concerns, kitchen table economics, kitchen table politics, etc.
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1965 Ebony May 204 (advt.) This book places politics, and an understanding of practical politics where Negroes are concerned, at the kitchen-table level.
1969 Washington Post & Times Herald 18 Oct. a1/8 Mr. Nixon's half-hour address..and its kitchen-table economics recalled some of the radio fireside chats by..Roosevelt.
1997 Z. Miller in R. Hyatt Zell xii. 205 Ethics doesn't move voters. What moves people are kitchen-table issues—how am I going to send my kids to college—what if I lose my job?
2004 Nation 29 Nov. 13/1 [It is] a campaign focused on Iraq and the war on terror, with little attention paid to kitchen-table concerns.
2020 Australian (Nexis) 7 Nov. 16 Many Americans believe the Democrats have drifted too far from the kitchen table politics of jobs, wages, faith and family that once made them the natural party for working and middle-class families.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, June 2021; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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