desk

Etymology

From Middle English deske, desque, from Medieval Latin desca, modified from Old Italian desco, from Latin discus. Doublet of dais, disc, discus, dish, disk, and diskos.

noun

1. A table, frame, or case, in past centuries usually with a sloping top but now usually with a flat top, for the use of writers and readers. It often has a drawer or repository underneath.
2. A reading table or lectern to support the book from which the liturgical service is read, differing from the pulpit from which the sermon is preached; also (especially in the United States), a pulpit. Hence, used symbolically for the clerical profession.
3. A department tasked with a particular topic or focus in certain types of businesses, such as newspapers and financial trading firms.
   the city desk, the sports desk
   the options desk, the equities desk
4. Short for mixing desk.
   Each aux out is connected to an effects unit and the signal is then returned into the desk. 2009, Rick Snoman, Dance Music Manual: Tools, Toys and Techniques, page 69
5. A station for a string player in an orchestra, consisting of a chair and a music stand, or a row of such stations.
   […]at best a competent viola player occupies a first desk, so that he may play the occasional solos for that instrument; but I have even seen this function performed by the leaderof the first violins. 2003, Sheila M. Nelson, The Violin and Viola: History, Structure, Techniques, page 158
   First desk: Lalance, chevalier de, composer; Meslay, Masson de, President of the exchequer, amateur; Blasius, Pierre, the elder, professor of music; Second desk:[…] 2006, Gabriel Banat, The Chevalier de Saint-Georges: Virtuoso of the Sword and the Bow, page 270
   Lori performed for years with the American Symphony Orchestra under Leopold Stokowski as a first-desk violinist. (She says that Stokowski was not a Russian but an Englishman named Stokes. His Russian accent varied a lot.) 2014, Reuben Hersh, Peter Lax, Mathematician, page 46

verb

1. (transitive) To shut up, as in a desk; to treasure.
2. (transitive) To equip with a desk or desks.
   But also that the said Chapell be desked, and the windowes of our said Chapell be glased, with Stores, Ymagies, Armes, Bagies ami Cognossaunts, as is by us redily divised, and in picture delivered to the Priour of Saunt Bartilmews besid Smythfel, maistre of the works of our said Chapell; 1775, Henry VII (King of England), The will of king Henry vii [ed. by T. Astle.]., page 6
   The teaching accommodation is to be as follows ;— Senior Mixed Department—Five rooms of equal area, four of which are each to be desked for forty scholars and one to be desked for thirty-two scholars 1914, The Builder - Volume 106, page 528
   Each row of desked benches was stepped up a step from the other until the top row of desked benches seemed to hit its high ceiling. 2001, Bonnie M Gulan, A Collection of Nodding Off Stories, page 64