tabula

1. (uncountable, historical) An ancient Roman game similar to backgammon that was played on a board with 24 divisions.Examples: "Readers may like to make a tabula board and try a simple game from France using two cubic dice."; "A bronze mirror from about 200 B.C. depicts a young man and a young woman playing tabula."; "Two men hunched in silence over black and white counters on a tabula board which had been carved around the edge with scenes of warriors at arms."historicaluncountable

2. (zoology) One of the transverse plants found in the calicles of certain corals and hydroids.Examples: "The tabulæ may be well developed, approximately horizontal, remote plates, as is usually the case in Zaphrentis and Amplexus, or they may anastomoze in various ways, and become so intimately connected with one another as to give rise to a species of vesicular tissue."; "When fully developed (fig. 66), they are transverse plates, which extend completely across the visceral chamber, and divide it into a series of stories placed one above the other, the only living portion of the coral being above the last formed tabula. Tabulæ are found in various of the Zoantharia sclerodermata, in some of the Alcyonaria, and in a great many of the Rugosa."; "Septa from 110 to 124, of two orders. The principal ones can be traced almost to the centre as crests on the tabulæ. The secondaries scarcely attain 4 millimetres, including the epitheca. They often bend towards the primaries, and are united by a few dissepiments (or rather the subdivided margins of the tabulæ). These latter are large, and virtually extend across the entire visceral chamber. The fossula (well seen in fig. 4) is formed by a deep inflexion of the tabulæ, the septa bending round with the margin of the depression."countableuncountable