[f. TURN sb. + TABLE sb.]
1. On a railway: A revolving platform turning on a central pivot, laid with rails connecting with adjacent tracks, for turning railway vehicles; a turn-plate.
1835. Massachusetts Stat., 4 April. To unite any rail-road or rail-roads … by turn-tables or otherwise.
1838. N. Wood, Railroads (ed. 3), 186. On each of these lines … circular turn-tables are placed, upon which the carriages are run.
1854. John Bull, 2 Sept., 558/2. An engine having been accidentally put in motion while on the turn table, ran over a side wall, and rested on end in the street below.
2. A revolving platform, table, stand, or disk of various kinds: see quots.; spec. (a) a rotating disk on which microscope slides are held for tracing the circular cement cells in which specimens are placed for examination; (b) see quot. 1889; (c) a turning device allowing a photographic camera to rotate on the stand or tripod; (d) a rotating plate-glass show stand used in shop-windows (Funk’s Stand. Dict., 1895).
1865. Morn. Star, 2 Sept. The burial board … determined on placing a stand, or what is called a ‘turn-table,’ in the church, and also one in the chapel [for use at funerals].
1867. J. Hogg, Microsc., I. iii. 254. The little box contains:—Shadbolts turn-table, brass table [etc.].
1887. T. A. Trollope, What I remember, II. xv. 279. His food … is passed in to him by a little turntable made in the wall.
1889. Welch, Text Bk. Naval Archit., v. 79. The four heavy guns are carried on revolving turntables in two fixed armoured redoubts or barbettes.
1892. Photogr. Ann., II. p. cxci. A special form of Turntable is fixed to the Camera, to which the legs may be quickly attached…. The centre of the Turntable is cut away.
3. attrib., as turn-table ladder, stack.
1893. Nation (N. Y.), 13 July, 28/3. At the Columbian Fair there is a turn-table stack of official publications.
1912. Times, 19 Dec., 12/6. A horsed escape, a fire engine, a turn-table ladder, and ten men turned out from the Theobald’s-road fire station.
