drop-leaf table, Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site, National Park Servicetable with one or two hinged leaves supported by articulated legs, arms, or brackets. An early 17th-century form is the gateleg table, which was followed by two later English forms—the Pembroke table and its more elongated version, the sofa table, which dates from about the 1790s. The sofa table could be drawn up to a sofa and was long enough for two people to sit at, side by side. It had a flap at either end, each supported on a hinged bracket. The top rested on a pair of decorative trestles, or braced frames, composed, for example, of two uprights on a horizontal support, terminating in a pair of outward-curving feet.
Regency sofa tables were often supported on a single centre pedestal resting on a platform that had four outward-curving feet terminating in brass lions’ paws. The butterfly table is a late 17th-century American type whose name derives from its shape when fully extended. The simplest form of drop-leaf table is the bracket table, a small side table fixed to the wall and supported by a bracket.