console

Meanings

Noun

• A stand-alone cabinet designed to stand on the floor; especially, one that houses home entertainment equipment, such as a TV or stereo system.
• A cabinet, upon which are mounted controls, instruments, and displays.
• An instrument with displays and an input device that is used to monitor and control an electronic system.
• A storage tray or container mounted between the seats of an automobile.
• An ornamental member jutting out of a wall to carry a superincumbent weight, often S-shaped.

Verb

• To comfort (someone) in a time of grief, disappointment, etc.

Related

Similar words

• comfort, solace

Origin

• Borrowed from French console ("bracket"), from consoler.
• Sense of “bracket” either due to a bracket alleviating the load, or due to brackets being decorated with the Christian figure of a consolateur, itself perhaps a pun on the first sense (alleviating load).
• Originally used for the bracket itself, then for wall-mounted tables (mounted with a bracket), then for free-standing tables placed against a wall. Use for control system dates at least to 1880s for an “organ console”; use for electrical or electronic control systems dates at least to 1930s in radio, television, and system control, particularly as “mixer console” or “control console”, attached to an equipment rack. This was popularized in computers by mainframes such as the IBM 704 (1954) in terms such as “operator’s console” or “console typewriter”, and then generalized to any attached equipment, particularly for user interaction. The automotive sense harks back to earlier use as “support”.
• Borrowed from French consoler, from Latin cōnsōlor ("I console, I offer solace"), root from Proto-Indo-European *sōlh₂- ("mercy, comfort") (whence also solace).