means A tall, slanted stand that holds a speaker's notes or a book, usually at the front of a room or church.

from From Latin 'lectrum,' a reading-desk, rooted in the verb 'legere,' to read — the same family that gives us 'lecture' and 'lectionary.' It reached English through Old French 'letrun' in the medieval church, where it propped up the heavy texts a reader stood over, and over centuries the spelling drifted back toward its Latin source.