The pulpit in a church, and figuratively, the clerical profession. The man appears well at the desk. He intends one son for the bar, and another for the desk.--Pickering. This New England word is not generally used in other parts of the country.
The pulpit, or as it is here [in Connecticut] called, the desk, was filled by three if not four clergymen; a number which, by its form and dimensions, it was able to accommodate.--Kendall's Travels, Vol. I. p.4.
They are common to every species of oratory, though of rarer use in the desk, &c.--Adams's Lecture on Rhetoric.