A coffee table, also called a cocktail table, is a style of long, low table which is designed to be placed in front of a sofa, to support beverages (hence the name), magazines, books (especially coffee table books), and other small items to be used while sitting, such as beverage coasters. Coffee tables are usually found in the living room or sitting room. They are available in many different variations and prices vary from style to style. Coffee tables may also incorporate cabinets for storage.
The most common construction of coffee tables is out of wood, but metal coffee tables are also popular. Typically, stainless steel or aluminum are used for metal coffee tables.
The idiom "Gather round the coffee table" is derived from the furniture piece and its proclivity for encouraging conviviality and light conversation.
Read more about Coffee Table: Origins
Famous quotes containing the words coffee and/or table:
“The chuck wagon carries the food and utensils for the range kitchen. Man-at-the-pot is the first buckaroo to pick up the coffee pot when out with the chuck wagons. It becomes his duty to pour the coffee for the outfit. “Come and get her before I throw her out” is the time honored mess call.”
—Administration in the State of Neva, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“When you got to the table you couldn’t go right to eating, but you had to wait for the widow to tuck down her head and grumble a little over the victuals, though there warn’t really anything the matter with them. That is, nothing only everything was cooked by itself. In a barrel of odds and ends it is different; things get mixed up, and the juice kind of swaps around, and the things go better.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)