carpet [ME] Originally tables or beds, not floors, were covered by a carpet, and it is the early ‘tablecloth’ meaning that is behind the expression on the carpet, ‘being severely reprimanded by someone in authority’. The phrase originally had the meaning, ‘under consideration or discussion’, and referred to the covering of a council table, where official documents for discussion were placed. A matter up for discussion at a meeting was on the carpet, just as we might now say on the table. The modern sense of carpet is found when you sweep something under the carpet [M20th] to hide or ignore a problem in the hope that it will be forgotten. The word carpet is from old Italian carpita ‘woollen bedspread’, which was based on Latin carpere ‘to pluck, pull to pieces, slander’, the source of excerpt [M16th], ‘pull bits out’, and an influence on carp [ME], ‘to criticize’, which was originally from Old Norse karpa ‘brag’ but the meaning of which was later influenced by carpere. See also harvest.