under the table
under the table (idiom, metaphor)
/ˈʌndər ðə ˈteɪbəl/
Meanings
- Done secretly or illegally, especially in business or financial dealings.
- Payment made in cash to avoid taxes or official records.
- So drunk that a person collapses or becomes unconscious.
- Literally, situated beneath a table.
Synonyms: secretly; illicitly; illegally; covertly; off the record; unofficially.
Example Sentences
- The politician was accused of receiving bribes under the table from contractors.
- Many temporary workers are still paid under the table without any paperwork.
- He tried to drink his college friends under the table, but ended up passing out first.
- The cat curled up under the table to take a nap. (literal)
Origin and History
The English phrase under the table has at least two long-standing idiomatic strands:
- A drinking image—”to drink someone under the table” (to drink more than someone else, so they become incapacitated)—which is attested in English print from the early 17th century;
- A separate sense—”by secret or illicit means” (for example, secret cash payments)—which appears in the English-language record much later, in the mid-20th century.
The visual idea behind both senses is straightforward: something concealed beneath a table becomes a compact metaphor for covert action.
Spatial Metaphor
One explanation ties the idiom to an ordinary act: people literally put hands or money under a table to conceal them from others present. That visible-to-hidden contrast (surface versus underside) is the basic spatial metaphor driving both the “drink under the table” image and the later “paid under the table” usage meaning clandestine or unlawful. Historical English vocabulary shows a cluster of related terms (aboveboard, underboard, underhand) built around gaming-table imagery of concealment.
Drinking Sense
The earliest clear printed instance of the drinking sense occurs in early modern England. A surviving edition of Thomas Hooker’s The Soules Preparation for Christ (London, 1632; later reprints around 1638) contains a passage that reads:
“There are many that despight the spirit of grace, and stick not to say, I did sweare such a man out of the house, and I did drinke such a man under the table dead.”
This demonstrates that the image—to drink someone into incapacitation—was already in active use in English by the 1630s.
Secret Payment Sense
The sense meaning “secretly, usually to avoid legal or ethical rules”—such as paid under the table—is not attested in early sources. The first clear records appear in the mid-20th century, around 1948–1949. While the metaphor is old, the specific usage referring to off-the-books payments and kickbacks is comparatively recent. Parallel idioms for clandestine commissions exist in other languages, showing that the imagery is cross-cultural even if the English idiom’s print record is later.
Country of Origin
The earliest evidence for the idiom family comes from England in the early 1600s, making England the documented point of origin for the “drink someone under the table” sense. The “secret payments” usage emerged much later in modern English and spread across both British and American contexts. Comparable forms in other languages reinforce the metaphor but do not precede the English printed record in this specific phrasing.
Scholarly Views
Etymologists generally agree that the phrase stems from a simple spatial metaphor of concealment at the table. From that literal imagery, different idiomatic meanings developed at different times: the drinking image quite early, the covert payment sense later. Some scholars argue that the modern sense may also have been reinforced by similar idioms in Continental languages. The precise line of semantic development is debated, but the metaphor of secrecy beneath the table is consistently central.
Variants
- under-the-table deal
- paid under the table
- slip under the table
- drink under the table
Share your opinions