desk

noun

1. A table, frame, or case, in past centuries usually with a sloping top but now usually with a flat top, for the use of writers and readers. It often has a drawer or repository underneath.

   “She organized her notes neatly on her desk before starting the project.”

   “The desk was cluttered with papers and books, making it hard to concentrate.”

   “He sat at his desk for hours, trying to finish the report.”

   “Here, in the transept and choir, where the service was being held, one was conscious every moment of an increasing brightness; colours glowing vividly beneath the circular chandeliers, and the rows of small lights on the choristers' desks flashed and sparkled in front of the boys' faces, deep linen collars, and red neckbands.”

2. A reading table or lectern to support the book from which the liturgical service is read, differing from the pulpit from which the sermon is preached; also (especially in the United States), a pulpit. Hence, used symbolically for the clerical profession.
3. A department tasked with a particular topic or focus in certain types of businesses, such as newspapers and financial trading firms.

   “the city desk, the sports desk”

   “the options desk, the equities desk”

4. (abbreviation, alt-of, ellipsis)Ellipsis of mixing desk.

   “Each aux out is connected to an effects unit and the signal is then returned into the desk.”

5. A station for a string player in an orchestra, consisting of a chair and a music stand, or a row of such stations.

   “The first four desks of cellos play separate parts, making a lush, Impressionist harmony.”

   “[…]at best a competent viola player occupies a first desk, so that he may play the occasional solos for that instrument; but I have even seen this function performed by the leaderof the first violins.”

   “First desk: Lalance, chevalier de, composer; Meslay, Masson de, President of the exchequer, amateur; Blasius, Pierre, the elder, professor of music; Second desk:[…]”

   “Lori performed for years with the American Symphony Orchestra under Leopold Stokowski as a first-desk violinist. (She says that Stokowski was not a Russian but an Englishman named Stokes. His Russian accent varied a lot.)”

verb

1. (transitive)To shut up, as in a desk; to treasure.
2. (transitive)To equip with a desk or desks.

   “But also that the said Chapell be desked, and the windowes of our said Chapell be glased, with Stores, Ymagies, Armes, Bagies ami Cognossaunts, as is by us redily divised, and in picture delivered to the Priour of Saunt Bartilmews besid Smythfel, maistre of the works of our said Chapell;”

   “The teaching accommodation is to be as follows ;— Senior Mixed Department—Five rooms of equal area, four of which are each to be desked for forty scholars and one to be desked for thirty-two scholars”

   “Each row of desked benches was stepped up a step from the other until the top row of desked benches seemed to hit its high ceiling.”

3. (transitive)To reject (an article submitted to a newspaper or academic journal etc.) on initial receipt, without reviewing it further.