PARSONS TABLE: n. A sturdy, usually rectangular table with flush surfaces and straight block legs that are equal in thickness to the top of the table and form its four corners.

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Leave it to the New York Times design editors to give a great answer:

"In the most likely version of the story the French decorator Jean-Michel Frank, the undisputed master of luxurious minimalism, was lecturing at the Paris branch of the Parsons School of Design in the 1930's. According to an oral history in the Parsons archives, Frank challenged students to design a table so basic that it would retain its integrity whether sheathed in gold leaf, mica, parchment, split straw or painted burlap, or even left robustly unvarnished.

        What grew out of Frank's sketches and the students' participation was initially called the T-square table, rigorously plain but with stylistic distinction: whatever its length or width, its square legs were always the same thickness as its top.

        Stanley Barrows, a Parsons student who became one of the school's most celebrated professors, recalled that the student creation was brought to 3-D life in New York by a handyman janitor at Parsons. Exhibited at a student show, the table, whose designer remains unknown, quickly became a favorite of tastemakers on both sides of the Atlantic."