These multi-purpose tables were historically used for playing games, drinking tea or spirits, reading and writing, and sewing.
[8] The legs formed a tripod and came in a large variety from cabriolet with articulated shoulders to smooth curves sloping towards the floor.
[12] The tip-top tables appeared "suddenly" in the British North American colonies around 1740 and enjoyed a still-unexplained rapid spread.
Gloag[further explanation needed] points to the term being applied to both the tilting and also to non-folding round gaming tables.
The accounts of cabinetmakers have many records of fixing the tilting mechanism; the contemporary satirical pictures compared the instability of the table to the one of the fashionable society.