A gateleg table is a type of furniture

Furniture

Furniture is the mass noun for the movable objects intended to support various human activities such as seating and sleeping in beds, to hold objects at a convenient height for work using horizontal surfaces above the ground, or to store things...

 first introduced in England in the 16th century. The table top has a fixed section and one or two hinged leaves, which, when not in use, folded down below the fixed section to hang vertically.

As such, a gateleg is a subset of the type known as a dropleaf. The hinged section, or flap, was supported on pivoted legs joined at the top and bottom by stretcher

Stretcher

A stretcher is a medical device used to carry casualties or an incapacitated person from one place to another. It is a simple type of litter, and still called by that name in some cases....

s constituting a gate. Large flaps had two supports, which had the advantage of providing freer leg space in the centre. Typically the table legs are supported by stretchers

Stretcher (furniture)

A stretcher is a horizontal support element of a table, chair or other item of furniture; this structure is normally made of exposed wood and ties vertical elements of the piece together. There are numerous styles of the stretcher including circumferential, double and spindle design. This term is...

. The earliest gateleg tables of the 16th and 17th century were typically made of oak

Oak

An oak is a tree or shrub in the genus Quercus , of which about 600 species exist. "Oak" may also appear in the names of species in related genera, notably Lithocarpus...

.