Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Desk |
DeskNoun1. A piece of furniture with a writing surface and usually drawers or other compartments. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "desk" was first used: 1363. (references) |
| Domain | Definition |
Dream Interpretation | To be using a desk in a dream, denotes unforeseen ill luck will rise before you. To see money on your desk, brings you unexpected extrication from private difficulties. Source: Ten Thousand Dreams Interpreted .... |
Law | The long desk in front of the presiding officer's rostrum where much of the clerical work of the body is conducted. Also, a generic term for the staff and offices of the Secretary of the Senate and the Chief Clerk of the Assembly. (references) |
Publishing & Graphic Arts | Desk where copy is edited and headlined. Source: European Union. (references) |
| The copy-desk, where stories are edited and hadlined. Source: European Union. (references) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
A desk is a piece of furniture made to read on or to write on, using simple implements like a pencil and paper or complicated ones like a computer.At one extreme in size one finds the Armoire desk, encased in a very large cabinet looking like a traditional wardrobe from the exterior, when the doors are closed. At the other end one finds the Portable desk, which, in its smallest forms, is light enough to be placed on a lap or on small supports on a bed.
Early desks
Desk forms might have existed in classical antiquity or in other ancient centers of civilisation in the Middle East or Far East, but we have no specific proofs. Medieval illustrations show the first pieces of furniture which seem to have been designed and constructed for the specific goals of reading and writing.
Before the invention of practical movable type Printing press in the 15th century, any reader was potentially a writer or a publisher or both, since any Book or other document had to be copied by hand. The desks were designed in consequence, with slots and hooks for bookmarks as well as writing implements. The absence of regular movable type printing also influenced desk size and shape because of the bigger volumes required for manuscript documents. Desks of the period usually had massive structures.
Desks of the Renaissance and later eras had relatively slimmer structures, and more and more drawers as woodworking became more precise and cabinet making became a distinct trade. It is often possible to find out if a table or other piece of furniture of those times was designed to be used as a desk by looking for a drawer with three small separations (one each for the ink pot, the blotter and the powder tray) and room for the pens.
Classical desk forms
The desk forms we are familiar with in this beginning of the millenium were born mostly in the 17th and 18th centuries. The Ergonomic desk of the last decades is the newest addition to a long list of desk forms, but in a way it is only a refinement of the mechanically complex Drawing table or drafting table of the end of the 18th century.
Industrial era desks
Refinements to those first desk forms were considerable through the 19th century, as steam driven machinery made cheap wood-based paper possible in the last periodes of the first phase of the Industrial revolution. This produced a boom in the number of, or some might say the birth of, the White-collar worker. As these office workers grew in number, desks were mass produced for them in large quantities, using newer steam driven woodworking machinery. This was the first sharp division in desk manufacturing. From then to our present day limited quantities of finely crafted desks were constructed by master cabinet makers for the homes and offices of the rich while the vast majority of desks were assembled rapidly by unskilled labor, from components turned out in batches by machine tools. Thus, age alone does not guarantee that an antique desk is a masterpiece, since this shift took place more than a hundred years ago.
More paper and more correspondence drove the need for more complex desks and more specialized desks, such as the Rolltop desk which was a mass produced slatted variant of the classical Cylinder desk. It provided a relatively fast and cheap way to lock up the ever increasing flow of paper without having to file everything by the end of the day. Paper documents started leaving the desk as a "home", with the general introduction of filing cabinets. Correspondence and other documents were now too numerous to get enough attention to be rolled up or folded again, then summarized and tagged before being pigeonholed in a small compartment over or under the work surface of the desk. The famous Wooton desk and others were the last monstrous manifestations of the dying "pigeonhole" era.
Desks groaning under masses of paper
A smaller boom in office work and desk production occurred at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th with the introduction of smaller and cheaper electrical presses and efficient carbon papers coupled with the general acceptance of theTypewriter. Steel desks were introduced to take heavier loads of paper and withstand the pounding meted out on the typewriters. The L shaped desk became popular, with the "leg" being used as an annex for the typewriter.
Another big boom occurred after the Second World War with the spread of photocopying. Paperwork drove even higher the number of desk workers, whose work surface diminished in size as office rent rose and the paper itself was moved more and more directly to filing cabinets or sent to records management centers, or transformed into microfilm or both. Modular desks seating several co-workers close by became common. Even executive or management desks became mass-produced, built of cheap plywood or fiberboard covered with wood veneer, as the number of persons managing the white collar workers became even greater.
Impact of computers on desk forms
The biggest paper boom occurred in the last decades of the 20th century with the introduction of mainframe computer printers and personal computer printers. The modular nature of the Personal computer and its printer and other peripherals gave a boost to the existing but recently invented Ergonomic desk, which was adapted to the peculiar needs of computer users. The beginning of this paper boom gave birth to the concept of the "paperless office", in which all information would appear on computer monitors. There would be no need for paper since all documents would be perfectly organized and accessible on the computers. The exact opposite happened. As information work was shifted to computers, users constantly printed out what was on their screens because the computer monitors had a resolution which was much inferior to that of paper, and because monitors were too costly to occupy entire desks, like sheets of papers laid out for comparison and/or for "reminding" purposes.
Since this last paper boom again produced a rise in the number of office workers and rises in office space rent, the infamous Cubicle desk became widely accepted as an economical way of putting more desk workers in the same space without actually shrinking the size of their working surfaces. The cubicle walls have become new homes for papers and other items once left on the horizontal desktop surface.
Future desk evolution
The desk's working surface served as the inspiration for our present Direct manipulation interface, which we usually know as the GUI, the Graphical user interface or as the virtual Desktop.
In a sense, the typical desk is becoming gradually virtual through a combination of the GUI and printouts, and is now expanding in size instead of shrinking, because of the exploitation of cubicle walls and of the theoretically infinite size of the GUI desktop. The term "paperless office" seems to have been finally discredited and integrations of future desk forms with future computer systems are usually discussed under the more neutral term of Office of the future.
References
Articles and books on real and virtual desks and things in between:
Aronson, Joseph. The Encyclopedia of Furniture.3rd edition. New York: Crown Publishers Inc., 1965.
Barreau, Deborah K.; Nardi, Bonnie. "Finding and Reminding: File Organization From the desktop". SigChi Bulletin. July 1995. Vol. 27. No. 3. pp. 39-43
Bedel, Jean. Le grand guide des styles. Paris Hachette, 1996.
Bederson, Benjamin; Hollan, James D. "Pad++: A Zooming Graphical Interface for Exploring Alternate Interface Physics". in: ACM SIGGRAPH and ACM SIGCHI. UIST 94 seventh Annual Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology. Proceedings of the ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology, Marina Del Rey, California November 2-4 1994. Boston, ACM press 1994. pp. 17-25.
Berger, Warren. "Lost In Space". Wired. Vol. 7 No. 2. pp.
Boyce, Charles. Dictionary of Furniture. New York: Roundtable press book, 1985
Browne, Hilary. Bederson, Benjamin B.;Plaisant, Catherine; Druin, Allison. Designing an Interactive Message Board as a Technology Probe for Family Communication. HCIL online tech report HCIL-2001-20, CS-TR-4284, UMIACS-TR-2001-63 (September 2001) ftp://ftp.cs.umd.edu/pub/hcil/Reports-Abstracts-Bibliography/2001-20html/2001-20.htm
Chou, Paul et alia. BlueSpace: Creating a Personalized and Context-Aware Workspace. IBM technical report October 31 2001
Comstock, Helen. American Furniture: 17th, 18th and 19th century styles. Lancaster , Pennsylvania: Schiffer Publishing, Ltd. 1997
Duncan, Alastair. Mobilier art déco. Paris, Thames and Hudson, 2000
Fass, Adam M.. Jodi Forlizzi. Randy Pausch. MessyDesk and MessyBoard: Two Designs Inspired By the Goal of Improving Human Memory. Proceedings of the conference on Designing interactive systems: processes, practices, methods, and techniques. London, England, June 25-28 of 2002. pp. 303-311.
Forrest, Tim The Bulfinch Anatomy of Antique Furniture. London: Marshall editions, 1996
Hinckley, F. Lewis. A Directory of Antique Furniture: The Authentic Classification of European and American Designs. New York: Bonanza Books, 1988.
Lanier, Jaron. "Virtually There: Three-dimensional tele-immersion may eventually bring the world to your desk". Scientific American. April 2001. http://www.sciam.com/2001/0401issue/0401lanier.html Giuiliano, Vincent E. "The Mechanization of Office Work". Scientific American. Vol. 247 No. 3. September 1982 pp. 148-164
Nutting, Wallace. Furniture Treasury. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1963.
Malone, Thomas W. "How do people organize their desks? Implications for the design of Office Information Systems". ACM Transactions on Office Information Systems. Vol. 1. No. 1 January 1983. pp 99-112.
Nardi, Bonnie; Barreau, Deborah K. "Finding and Reminding Revisited: Appropriate metaphors for File Organization at the Desktop". SigChi Bulletin. January 1997. Vol. 29. No. 1.
Oglesby, Catherine. French provincial decorative art. New York, Scribner, 1951.
Payne, Christopher. Ed. Sotheby's Concise Encyclopedia of Furniture. London: Conran Octopus, 1989.
Pélegrin-Genel, Elisabeth. L'art de vivre au bureau. Paris, Flammarion, 1995.
Regenbrecht, Holger. and Tetsutari, Nobuzi. . Developing a Generic Augmented Reality Interface. Computer, March 2002. Vol.35. No3, pp. 44-50.
Reyniès, Nicole de. Le mobilier domestique: Vocabulaire Typologique. Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1987.
Robertson, George G. Maarten van Dantzich. Daniel Robbins. Mary Czerwinski. Ken Hinckley. Kirsten Risden. David Thiel. Vadim Gorokhovsky. "The Task Gallery: A 3D Window Manager". In: CHI 2000: Proceedings of the ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems The Hague. April 1-6 2000 . New York: ACM Press, 2000. pp. 494-501.
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Desk."
| The following table is compiled from various sources, across various languages. When English abbreviations or acronyms come from a non-English source, this is noted. | |||
| Entry | Source | Expression | Field |
| HELP DESK | English | Collect records on informatics incidents | European Union |
Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |||
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Clergy | Noun: clergy, clericals, ministry, priesthood, presbytery, the cloth, the desk. |
Receptacle | Chest, box, coffer, caddy, case, casket, pyx, pix, caisson, desk, bureau, reliquary; trunk, portmanteau, band-box, valise; grip, grip sack; skippet, vasculum; boot, imperial; vache; cage, manger, rack. |
School | Pulpit, lectern, soap box desk, reading desk, ambo, lecture room, theater, auditorium, amphitheater, forum, state, rostrum, platform, hustings, tribune. |
Support | Board, ledge, shelf, hob, bracket, trevet, trivet, arbor, rack; mantel, mantle piece, mantleshelf; slab, console; counter, dresser; flange, corbel; table, trestle; shoulder; perch; horse; easel, desk; clotheshorse, hatrack; retable; teapoy. |
Temple | Chancel, quire, choir, nave, aisle, transept, vestry, crypt, golgotha, calvary, Easter sepulcher; stall, pew; pulpit, ambo, lectern, reading desk, confessional, prothesis, credence, baldachin, baldacchino; apse, belfry; chapter house; presbytery; anxious-bench, anxious-seat; diaconicum, jube; mourner's bench, mourner's seat. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | I want the entire history of this device, from birth to abortion on my desk in 2 hours (Enemy of the State; writing credit: David Marconi) Behind a desk. (Black Hawk Down; writing credit: Ken Nolan) This is not even my desk! (Se7en; writing credit: Andrew Kevin Walker) Spend a year on this side of the desk. (Caroline in the City; writing credit: Angela Carneiro) You sit there behind your desk and ask what is it (The Good Doctor; writing credit: Anton Chekhov; Neil Simon) | |
Lyrics | And the desk clerk's dressed in black (Heartbreak Hotel; performing artist: Elvis Presley) Well, the desk clerk's tears keep flowin' ("Heartbreak Hotel"; performing artist: Elvis Presley) And have the lady at the desk bring (Murder Murder (Remix) *; performing artist: Eminem) | |
Clever | A clean desk is a sign of a cluttered desk drawer. (references; author: unknown) Buses stop at bus stations, trains at train stations, my desk has a workstation. (references; author: unknown) You work for a defense contractor if you sat at the same desk for 3 years and worked for 3 different companies. (references; author: unknown) | |
Movie/TV Titles | From the Desk of Margaret Tyding (1958) Desk Set (1957) National Desk (1997) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title | ||
References |
| ||
Books |
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Periodicals | |||
Theater & Movies | |||
Music |
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High Tech |
| ||
Consumer Goods | |||
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit | Thumbnail | Description & Credit |
 | Scientist seated at a desk working on scientific calculations. Credit: Unknown photographer/artist. |  | Shows Dr. Carl Voegtlin, NCI director 1940 and Dr. M.J. Shear standing at desk in office analyzing paper work, "Mobilizing Man, Mice and Machines for the Fight". Credit: Unknown photographer/artist. |
 | Shown is a woman sitting at a desk writing down her doctor's appointment into her appointment book. See artwork: GR-42. Credit: Bill Branson (photographer). |  | A woman doctor sits on the edge of a desk with mammograms on a view box behind her, speaking with a black patient. See artwork: GR-42. Credit: Bill Branson (photographer). |
 | A receptionist speaks on the phone at her desk. She is sitting in front of a typewriter. See artwork: GR-42. Credit: Bill Branson (photographer). |  | An older woman in a magenta blouse sits in a waiting room. A receptionist's desk is in the foreground. See artwork: GR-42. Credit: Bill Branson (photographer). |
 | A young, professional, black woman is seated at an office desk next to a computer monitor. See artwork: OCC-11. Credit: Bill Branson (photographer). |  | Doctor sitting at his office desk accessing PDQ on his IBM computer. The Physicians Data Query was designed by the National Cancer Institute to help physicians obtain information about the most up-to-date protocols, physicians, and clinics treating cancer patients. Credit: Ernie Branson (photographer). |
 | Henry Reid at his Desk. Credit: NASA. |  | AQUARIUS watch desk keeps 24 hr. watch on saturation operations. Credit: National Undersea Research Program (NURP). |
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
 |  |
| "Desk 1" by Rohit Seth Commentary: "Work Desk Shot." | "Desk" by Maxim Lachmann Commentary: "Taken with a Canon Eos 50 E." |
Source: photographs selected by the editor, with permission from the photographers. | |
| Play | Caption |
 | Front desk bell at a hotel ringing twice. |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Title | Author | Quote |
Les Miserables | Hugo, Victor | This silence was seasoned with the Lives of the Saints, read in a loud voice from a little reading desk placed at the foot of a crucifix |
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man | Joyce, James | After supper in the studyhall he would change the number pasted up inside his desk from seventyseven to seventysix |
Grapes of Wrath | Steinbeck, John | A lot and a house large enough for a desk and chair and a blue book |
Walden | Thoreau, Henry David | I had no lock nor bolt but for the desk which held my papers, not even a nail to put over my latch or windows |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Health | Physicians Desk Reference The Physicians Desk Reference database (also available in CD-Rom and book format) is a full-text drug database. (references) | |
Business | These are frequently used by chat lines and by organizations wishing to profit from providing customer help desk support. (references) | |
For example, desk and conference table systems must cater to communication-oriented businesses, where tables need to be set up and dismantled quickly to handle conferences, meetings and team discussions. (references) | ||
At this moment Netifon makes it possible to call from a computer to desk telephones throughout Estonia, but in the future it will also be possible to make calls to mobile phones and abroad, and from a desk or mobile telephone to a computer. (references) | ||
Economic History | Thailand | Suppliers of products that have complicated technologies should obtain a highly qualified and experienced technical team and provide technical training to their customers, or set up a customer help desk. (references) |
Poland | Among school and office supply products, the best sale and import potential over the next three years will be desk accessories, organizers and planners, filing supplies and accessories, and plastic school supplies. (references) | |
Human Rights | Nicaragua | Instead, there is a desk review by a magistrate of the file of the accused. (references) |
Trade | Uruguay | Exim's Uruguay Desk Officers may be contacted by phone at 202-565-3913, Fax: 202-565-3931. (references) |
Morocco | Contact: Export-Import Bank of the United States, 811 Vermont Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20871; 1-800-565-EXIM (3946); Talaat Rahman, Desk Officer for North Africa, Tel: (202) 565-3911; Fax: (202) 565-3931; International Lending fax: (202) 565-3816, or call 1-800-USA-TRADE for the location of your nearest U.S. Export Assistance Center. (references) | |
Colombia | Any U.S. exporter wishing to obtain the list of Colombian Harmonized Tariff Schedule headings subject to this regulation or who encounter problems due to this requirement may consult with the Colombia Desk at the U.S. Department of Commerce, Tel: (202) 482-0057, or with the Commercial Service at the U.S. Embassy in Bogota, Tel: (571) 315-2126 or 315-2298. (references) | |
Travel | Senegal | Numerous car rental agencies offer first-class service and have a desk at the airport and in hotels. (references) |
Senegal | Business travelers may also consult with the Commerce Department's International Trade Administration (ITA) Desk Officer by telephone at 202-377-4388. (references) | |
Guatemala | If interested in visiting restaurants/nightspots in out of the hotel zones of the city, it is convenient to do so in groups with others and obtain taxis from the hotel front desk. (references) | |
Women | Ghana | In 2000 the Government established a women's desk responsible for addressing the gender imbalance in the civil service. (references) |
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines | The Ministry of Education, Women's Affairs, and Culture has a women's desk that assists the National Council of Women with seminars, training programs, and public relations. (references) | |
Lexicography | Devil's Dictionary | DEPUTY, n. A male relative of an office-holder, or of his bondsman. The deputy is commonly a beautiful young man, with a red necktie and an intricate system of cobwebs extending from his nose to his desk. When accidentally struck by the janitor's broom, he gives off a cloud of dust. "Chief Deputy," the Master cried, "To-day the books are to be tried By experts and accountants who Have been commissioned to go through Our office here, to see if we Have stolen injudiciously. Please have the proper entries made, The proper balances displayed, Conforming to the whole amount Of cash on hand -- which they will count. I've long admired your punctual way -- Here at the break and close of day, Confronting in your chair the crowd Of business men, whose voices loud And gestures violent you quell By some mysterious, calm spell -- Some magic lurking in your look That brings the noisiest to book And spreads a holy and profound Tranquillity o'er all around. So orderly all's done that they Who came to draw remain to pay. But now the time demands, at last, That you employ your genius vast In energies more active. Rise And shake the lightnings from your eyes; Inspire your underlings, and fling Your spirit into everything!" The Master's hand here dealt a whack Upon the Deputy's bent back, When straightway to the floor there fell A shrunken globe, a rattling shell A blackened, withered, eyeless head! The man had been a twelvemonth dead. Jamrach Holobom |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| Speaker | Phrase(s) |
Don Hewitt | Well, I still intend to die at my desk. I never said where that desk was. I would like it to be at CBS. I think it will be at CBS. If it's somewhere else, it will make me very unhappy, and I would like to believe it will make them very unhappy. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Speaker | Term | Phrase(s) |
Richard Nixon | 1969-1974 | Fifty years ago, in this room and at this very desk, President Woodrow Wilson spoke words which caught the imagination of a war-weary world. |
Ronald Reagan | 1981-1989 | I hope you'll pass and send that legislation to my desk. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| "Desk" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 99.96% of the time. "Desk" is used about 4,510 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (singular) | 99.96% | 4,508 | 2,167 |
| Noun (proper) | 0.04% | 2 | 245,945 |
| Total | 100.00% | 4,510 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
| Country | Name |
| France | Desk SA |
| (more examples...) |
Source: compiled by the editor from Icon Group International, Inc.
Expressions using "desk": calculating machine desk ♦ cash desk ♦ cashier's desk ♦ city desk ♦ control desk ♦ copy desk ♦ desk audit ♦ desk book ♦ desk calculator ♦ desk calendar ♦ desk check ♦ desk clerk ♦ desk dictionary ♦ desk drawer ♦ desk fan ♦ desk job ♦ desk lamp ♦ desk officer ♦ desk phone ♦ desk sergeant ♦ desk set ♦ desk work ♦ electronic desk calculator ♦ hotel desk clerk ♦ information desk ♦ inquiry desk ♦ issue desk ♦ master's desk ♦ mixing desk ♦ news desk ♦ nomadic desk ♦ pay desk ♦ prayer desk ♦ reader's desk in synagogue ♦ reading desk ♦ reception desk ♦ reservation desk ♦ reservations desk ♦ secretarial desk ♦ soap box desk ♦ speaker's desk ♦ sports desk ♦ student desk ♦ switch desk ♦ teacher's desk ♦ the desk ♦ writing desk. Additional references. | |
| Hyphenated Usage | |
Beginning with "desk": desk-attached, desk-based, desk-bound, desk-computer, desk-console, desk-diary, desk-drawer, desk-high, desk-jockey, desk-jockeys, desk-lamp, desk-pounding, desk-propping, desk-sergeant, desk-set, desk-side, desk-sitting, desk-sized, desk-study, desk-tank, desk-to-desk, desk-top, desk-tops, desk-toys, desk-work. | |
Ending with "desk": reading-desk. | |
Containing "desk": foreign-desk-clerk. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day | Expression | Frequency per Day |
computer desk | 4,621 | student desk | 250 |
desk | 2,921 | lap desk | 229 |
help desk | 2,416 | secretary desk | 224 |
physician desk reference | 2,290 | school desk | 212 |
help desk software | 1,680 | home office desk | 201 |
antique desk | 671 | help desk support | 194 |
office desk | 664 | child desk | 189 |
desk lamp | 445 | help desk application | 174 |
corner computer desk | 440 | laptop desk | 166 |
roll top desk | 401 | reception desk | 164 |
writing desk | 355 | oak desk | 162 |
desk chair | 329 | help desk online | 150 |
desk top theme | 322 | it help desk software | 148 |
corner desk | 320 | desk name | 144 |
critical desk help mission support | 316 | reference desk | 142 |
desk clock | 315 | kid desk | 139 |
desk accessory | 301 | help desk solution | 138 |
desk top | 275 | office furniture desk | 138 |
executive desk | 263 | web based help desk | 136 |
desk set | 261 | furniture desk | 135 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Language | Translations for "desk"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Afrikaans | lessenaar (lectern, school desk). (various references) | |
Albanian | tryezë shkrimi (bureau, writing desk, writing table), tryezë pune (worktable), tavolinë (table), redaksi (editorial office, newsroom), punë në zyrë, pult i drejtimit, pult, katedër (chair, rostrum), bankë shkolle, banak (bar, buffet, counter, stand, tabouret). (various references) | |
Arabic | مَكْتَب (office), مكتب (bureau, lodge, office, study, writing desk), منضدة (bar, bureau, stand, table), سكرتارية التحرير, المقرأ, الدائرة (circle, parish), إستقبال (levee, pickup, reception, rout). (various references) | |
Asturian | pupitre. (various references) | |
Basque | eskolamahai. (various references) | |
Bemba | idesiki. (various references) | |
Bulgarian | редакция на вестник, чин (form, position, precedence, rank, rating), командно табло (console, panel), аналой (lectern, reading desk), амвон (pulpit), бюро (agency, board, bureau, office, service, writing desk), пулт (reading desk), писалище (writing desk, writing table), духовен сан (order, orders). (various references) | |
Cebuano | sulatanan. (various references) | |
Chamorro | lamasa (table). (various references) | |
Chinese | 臺子 (table), 臺 (platform, stage, station), 檯 (platform), 書桌 , 桌子 (table), 书桌. (various references) | |
Cornish | desk. (various references) | |
Croatian | recepciji (reception desk). (various references) | |
Czech | lavice (bench). (various references) | |
Danish | skrivebord (writing desk, writing-desk). (various references) | |
Dutch | lezenaar (lectern, school desk), lessenaar (lectern, school desk). (various references) | |
Ecuadorian Quechua | púpitre. (various references) | |
Esperanto | skribtablo (writing desk, writing-desk), pupitro (lectern, school desk). (various references) | |
Faeroese | skriviborð (writing desk, writing-desk). (various references) | |
Farsi | میزتحریر (Writingdesk). (various references) | |
Finnish | pulpetti (bench). (various references) | |
French | pupitre (reading desk, school desk), bureau (writing desk). (various references) | |
Frisian | skriuwtafel (writing desk, writing-desk), skriuwburo (writing desk, writing-desk), lessener, buro (writing desk, writing-desk). (various references) | |
German | Pult (console, lectern, school desk), Schreibtisch (desktop, writing table), Tisch (bench, meal, slab, table). (various references) | |
Greek | θρανίο (bench, settee, settle), γραφείο (bureau, drawing-room, escritoire, office, secretary, study, writing desk). (various references) | |
Hebrew | משרדי (clerical, office), מכתבה (writing desk), שולחן כתיבה (bureau, writing desk). (various references) | |
Hungarian | íróasztal (bureau, bureaux, tallboy, writing desk, writing table, writing-table). (various references) | |
Indonesian | meja (table), bangku (bench, couch). (various references) | |
Inuktitut | kippu (table). (various references) | |
Italian | scrivania (bureau, escritoire, writing, writing desk, writing-desk), banco (bank, bar, bench, counter, dock, pew, stall, stand, work bench, writing, writing desk, writing-desk), tavolo (table). (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | デジタル通信 (copy editor, dead, dead copy, dead end, dead heat, dead stock, dead time, deadline, deadlock, death, death education, death mask, debug, debugger, debugging, deck, deck chair, dedicate, dedication, deduction, de-escalate, de-escalation, Denebola, denier, denim, denomination, denotation, denotational, department, department store, departure, description, desk plan, desk work, desk-top, desperate, desperate struggle, despotism, destination, destroyer, detached coat, detail, detector, detente, deterrent gap, Detroit, devaluation, device, digital communication, distributor cap, divider, fight to a finish, hit a batter by pitching a ball, rough sketch, to eat at Denny's), 机 , 机 , 几案 , 勉強机 , 卓用 (table use), 卓 (high, table). (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | たくよう (table use), たく (high, home, house, husband, table, to boil, to build a fire, to burn, to cook, to kindle), デスク (copy editor), きあん (drafting), べんきょうずくえ, つくえ. (various references) | |
Korean | 책상. (various references) | |
Macedonian | uchilisna klupa. (various references) | |
Manx | desk. (various references) | |
Mohawk | yehyatonhstahkwa. (various references) | |
Norwegian | skranke, pult. (various references) | |
Occitan | pupitre. (various references) | |
Pig Latin | eskday.(various references) | |
Portuguese | secretária (bureau, escritoire, secretaire, secretary), escrivaninha (bureau, davenport, secretaire, writing-desk, writing-table), carteira (lectern, pocket-book, purse, school desk, student desk, wallet, writing-table), balcão (balcony, counter, gallery). (various references) | |
Portuguese Brazilian | recepção (front desk, reception). (various references) | |
Provencal | taula (table). (various references) | |
Romanian | birou (bureau, cabinet, chamber, chambers, davenport, library, office, studio, study, writing desk, writing table, writing-desk). (various references) | |
Ruanda | imeza (table). (various references) | |
Russian | стол;пульт настольный, стол (board, diet, groaning board, platen, table), сектор (department, quadrant, sector, segment), редакция газеты, рабочий стол (table, worktable), отделение (cell, compartment, detachment, disseverance, dissociation, parting, partition, segregation, separation), бювар (writing pad), пульт управления, парта (form), письменный стол (secretaire, writing desk, writing table, writing-desk, writing-table). (various references) | |
Samoan | kesi (gasoline). (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | recepcija (reception, reception desk), pisaći sto (escritoire, writing desk, writing table), odsek (department, departmental, intercept, section, subdivision). (various references) | |
Sicilian | scrivania. (various references) | |
Somali | miiska. (various references) | |
Spanish | pupitre (horse, music stand, school-desk), escritorio (a desk, bureau, desk job, escritoire, scriptorium, writing desk, writing table). (various references) | |
Swedish | skrivbord (davenport, desktop, writing desk, writing table, writing-desk, writing-table), pulpet. (various references) | |
Tagalog | desk. (various references) | |
Turkish | yazı masası (davenport, secretaire, secretary, writing desk, writing table), sıra (alignment, arrangement, array, bench, file, form, linage, line, occasion, order, ordinal, place, progression, queue, range, rank, row, sequence, series, settle, slot, spell, succession, tier, train, turn), resepsiyon (reception, reception desk), masa (console, table), kontrol paneli (control board, dashboard, facia, facia board, facia panel, panel, panel board), kasa (case, cash desk, cashbox, cashier's desk, cashier's office, casing, chest, coffer, crate, Peter, register, safe, strongbox, till, vaulting horse), kürsü (bench, chair, dais, green table, lectern, professorial chair, professorship, pulpit, rostrum, stand, Tribune), büro (bureau, chamber, clerical, office), bölüm (Cantle, category, chapter, class, compartment, department, division, episode, fraction, fragment, installment, instalment, part, portion, quotient, section, segment, septum, sequence, side, squad), çalışma masası (bureau, worktable, writing table). (various references) | |
Turkmen | parta (r). (various references) | |
Ukrainian | робочий стіл, шухляда (drawer, shuttle), конторка, бювар, парта, письмовий стіл (bureau). (various references) | |
Vietnamese | công tác văn thư, bàn viết (writing-desk, writing-table), bàn học sinh. (various references) | |
Welsh | desg (writing desk). (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
| Language | Period | Translations |
| Latin | 500 BCE-Modern | discus. (various references) |
| Medieval Latin | 700-1500 | desca. (various references) |
| French | 1500-Modern | bureau. (various references) |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "desk": deskbound, deskman, deskmen, desks, desktop, desktops. (additional references) | |
Words ending with "desk": copydesk. (additional references) | |
Words containing "desk": copydesks. (additional references) | |
| |
"Desk" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: daks, dansk, Ddsi, deak, Debska, deek, deik, dek, Deks, delk, Demski, Demszky, denk, Deok, derk, dersu, Desa, desb, desc, desce, dese, desh, desi, desn, desp, Desq, Dessi, dest, D'est, devs, dexs, dez, Dezi, dezl, Dezo, diask, dilsk, dmsu, dosk, dsc, dsg, dsp, Dybski, esk, Essc, Fesik, gesk, Mdesk, Sesok, tesk, vesk. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "desk" (pronounced de"sk) |
| 3 | -e" s k | burlesque, grotesque, statuesque. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "d-e-k-s" | |
-1 letter: eds. | |
-2 letters: de, ed, es. | |
| Words containing the letters "d-e-k-s" | |
+1 letter: asked, decks, dekes, desks, dikes, dreks, dukes, dykes, skeed, skied, skyed, tsked. | |
+2 letters: basked, busked, casked, dekkos, dikers, disked, drakes, drecks, dusked, husked, kedges, kendos, khedas, kissed, kneads, masked, risked, sacked, sicked, silked, skated, skewed, skited, skived, slaked, smoked, snaked, soaked, socked, spiked, spoked, staked, stoked, sucked, sulked, tasked, tusked. | |
+3 letters: bedecks, brisked, dackers, daikers, dankest, darkens, darkest, darkles, debarks, debeaks, debunks, deckels, deckers, deckles, dekares, demarks, deskman, deskmen, desktop, deticks, dickens, dickers, dickeys, dickies, dinkeys, dinkies, dislike, disyoke, dockers, dockets, doeskin, donkeys, duckers, duckies, duikers, dunkers, duskier, enskied, enskyed, frisked, kalends, keddahs, keloids, keypads, khedahs, kidders, kiddies, kiddoes, kidneys, kindest, kindles, kludges, medakas, medicks, nonsked, predusk, redocks, redskin, sculked, shanked, sharked, shirked, shocked, shucked, sickbed, sickled, skeined, skelped, skidded, skidder, skilled, skimmed, skimped, skinked, skinned, skipped, skirled, skirred, skirted, skoaled, skulked, skulled, skunked, skydive, skydove, slacked, sleeked, slicked, slinked, smacked, smeeked, smerked, smirked, smocked, snacked, sneaked, snicked, snooked, spanked, sparked, specked, spooked, spunked, stacked, stalked, steeked, sticked, stocked, stooked, straked, stroked, suckled, sundeck, swacked, swanked, swinked, unasked, whisked. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Crosswords 3. Usage: Modern 4. Usage: Commercial | 5. Images: Slideshow 6. Images: Photo Album 7. Images: Digital Art 8. Sounds | 9. Quotations: Fiction 10. Quotations: Non-fiction 11. Quotations: Spoken 12. Quotations: Speeches | 13. Usage Frequency 14. Names: Company Usage 15. Expressions 16. Expressions: Internet | 17. Translations: Modern 18. Translations: Ancient 19. Abbreviations 20. Acronyms | 21. Derivations 22. Rhymes 23. Anagrams 24. Bibliography |
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