noun
tablet
A small flat slab, a medicinal pill, or a portable touchscreen computer.
Where it comes from
Tablet ordinarily means a small flat slab, a medicinal pill, or a portable touchscreen computer. Middle English tablet came from Anglo-French tablet, a diminutive of table. The deeper family leads to Latin tabula, a board or plank and, specifically, a surface for writing or public inscription. A tablet could be a small flat slab or waxed writing board. Its shape then named flat molded portions of medicine or other substances.
How the meaning developed
The electronic tablet revived the older writing-pad sense: once again it is a portable flat surface read and written on, now through a screen.
Sources
Definitions adapted from Open English WordNet where applicable. License and attribution. Word-history text comes from Lexifour’s sourced social research; pages are assembled automatically, not individually fact-checked on every update.
Updated 2026-10-05. Report a correction.