desk

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A piece of furniture typically having a flat or sloping top for writing and often drawers or compartments.
2. n. A table, counter, or booth at which specified services or functions are performed: an information desk; a reception desk.
3. n. A department of a large organization in charge of a specified operation: a newspaper's city desk.
4. n. A lectern.
5. n. A music stand in an orchestra.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A table specially adapted for convenience in writing or reading, frequently made with a sloping top, which may lift on hinges to give access to an interior compartment, as in the ordinary form of school-desk, or combined with drawers, and sometimes with book-shelves; also, a frame or case with a sloping top, intended to rest on a table, and to hold a book or paper conveniently for reading or writing. The name is sometimes extended to the whole structure or erection to which such a sloping frame is attached, as in the Church of England to the stall from which the morning and evening services are read, in Scotch churches to the stall of the precentor, and in the United States to the pulpit or the lectern in a church.
2. To shut, up in or as if in a desk; treasure up.

Wiktionary

1. n. A table, frame, or case, usually with sloping top, but often with flat top, for the use writers and readers. It often has a drawer or repository underneath.
2. n. 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. v. To shut up, as in a desk; to treasure.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. A table, frame, or case, usually with sloping top, but often with flat top, for the use writers and readers. It often has a drawer or repository underneath.
2. n. 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 (esp. in the United States), a pulpit. Hence, used symbolically for “the clerical profession.”
3. v. To shut up, as in a desk; to treasure.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a piece of furniture with a writing surface and usually drawers or other compartments