Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
Wiktionary
n. 1 A plane wooden construction or table to which paper can be fastened for drawing purposes. 2 (context figuratively English) Used to refer to the planning stage of a project as in:
WordNet
n. a smooth board on which paper is placed for making drawings [syn: drafting board]
Wikipedia
A drawing board (also drawing table, drafting table or architect's table) is, in its antique form, a kind of multipurpose desk which can be used for any kind of drawing, writing or impromptu sketching on a large sheet of paper or for reading a large format book or other oversized document or for drafting precise technical illustrations. The drawing table used to be a frequent companion to a pedestal desk in a gentleman's study or private library, during the pre-industrial and early industrial era.
During the Industrial Revolution draftsmanship gradually became a specialized trade and drawing tables slowly moved out of the libraries and offices of most gentlemen. They became more utilitarian and were built of steel and plastic instead of fine woods and brass.
More recently, engineers and draftsmen use the drawing board for making and modifying drawings on paper with ink or pencil. Different drawing instruments ( set square, protractor, etc.) are used on it to draw parallel, perpendicular or oblique lines. There are instruments for drawing circles, arcs, other curves and symbols too ( compass, French curve, stencil, etc.). However, with the gradual introduction of computer aided drafting and design (CADD or CAD) in the last decades of the 20th century and the first of the 21st century, the drawing board is becoming less common.
A drawing table is also sometimes called a mechanical desk because, for several centuries, most mechanical desks were drawing tables. Unlike the gadgety mechanical desks of the second part of the 18th century, however, the mechanical parts of drawing tables were usually limited to notches, ratchets, and perhaps a few simple gears, or levers or cogs to elevate and incline the working surface.
Very often a drawing table could look like a writing table or even a pedestal desk when the working surface was set at the horizontal and the height adjusted to 29 inches, in order to use it as a "normal" desk. The only giveaway was usually a lip on one of the sides of the desktop. This lip or edge stopped paper or books from sliding when the surface was given an angle. It was also sometimes used to hold writing implements. When the working surface was extended at its full height, a drawing table could be used as a standing desk.
Many reproductions have been made and are still being produced of drawing tables, copying the period styles they were originally made in during the 18th and 19th centuries.
Usage examples of "drawing board".
Inside, he grabbed two sketchbooks off his drawing board and then held them flat like a tray beside his supplies table.
He would find himself sitting in the little back bedroom Bobby had used as a studio, staring at a blank sheet of paper on the drawing board.
At the site there were moments when he wished to forget his office and his drawing board, to seize the men's tools and go to work on the actual erection of the house, as he had worked in his childhood, to build that house with his own hands.
On the day of his departure Cameron handed to Roark a letter he had written in the night, written painfully, an old drawing board on his knees, a pillow propping his back.
His partner Mouse found that after he had been some months at his drawing board he had gotten no further with firm plans for the Cathedral of Commerce, had been sitting instead hour after hour doodling tiny houses with strange insides.
A nuclear-powered version was on the drawing board, but until someone could figure out how to allay environmental concerns, it was going to stay there.
Francesca sat on the deck with the drawing board in her lap, singing haphazardly to herself as she sketched.
When I was finished, she kept staring, and I went over to my drawing board, took up Coral's Trump, tried again, but couldn't get through.
You'll find I've had a drawing board of the sort you favor built and set up in your old room, along with a supply of parchment, pens, lamps, and that sort of thing.
The naval officer paused by the littered desk with the drawing board beside it.
I sit at my drawing board with a pencil in my hand and a sheet of white paper before me.