diff --git a/NEWS.md b/NEWS.md
index d0a8e8f5f7..cc98ebbe31 100644
--- a/NEWS.md
+++ b/NEWS.md
@@ -396,6 +396,8 @@
     # 2:          2021-02-03  # was 18661
     # 3: 4611686018427387906  # was error 'please use as.character'
     ```
+    
+47. `tables()` failed with `argument "..." is missing` when called from within a function taking `...`; e.g. `function(...) { tables() }`, [#5197](https://github.com/Rdatatable/data.table/issues/5197). Thanks @greg-minshall for the report and @michaelchirico for the fix.
 
 ## NOTES
 
diff --git a/R/tables.R b/R/tables.R
index 99c59f0c4d..adb82066b5 100644
--- a/R/tables.R
+++ b/R/tables.R
@@ -2,12 +2,13 @@
 MB = NCOL = NROW = NULL
 
 tables = function(mb=TRUE, order.col="NAME", width=80,
-                   env=parent.frame(), silent=FALSE, index=FALSE)
+                  env=parent.frame(), silent=FALSE, index=FALSE)
 {
   # Prints name, size and colnames of all data.tables in the calling environment by default
-  all_obj = objects(envir=env, all.names=TRUE)
-  is_DT = which(vapply_1b(all_obj, function(x) is.data.table(get(x, envir=env))))
-  if (!length(is_DT)) {
+  # include "hidden" objects (starting with .) via all.names=TRUE, but exclude ... specifically, #5197
+  all_obj = grep("...", objects(envir=env, all.names=TRUE, sorted=order.col == "NAME"), invert=TRUE, fixed=TRUE, value=TRUE)
+  is_DT = vapply_1b(mget(all_obj, envir=env), is.data.table)
+  if (!any(is_DT)) {
     if (!silent) catf("No objects of class data.table exist in %s\n", if (identical(env, .GlobalEnv)) ".GlobalEnv" else format(env))
     return(invisible(data.table(NULL)))
   }
@@ -23,8 +24,11 @@ tables = function(mb=TRUE, order.col="NAME", width=80,
       KEY = list(key(DT)),
       INDICES = if (index) list(indices(DT)))
   }))
-  if (!order.col %chin% names(info)) stopf("order.col='%s' not a column name of info", order.col)
-  info = info[base::order(info[[order.col]])]  # base::order to maintain locale ordering of table names
+  # objects() above handled the sorting for order.col=="NAME"
+  if (order.col != "NAME") {
+    if (!order.col %chin% names(info)) stopf("order.col='%s' not a column name of info", order.col)
+    info = info[base::order(info[[order.col]])]  # base::order to maintain locale ordering of table names
+  }
   if (!silent) {
     # prettier printing on console
     pretty_format = function(x, width) {
diff --git a/inst/tests/tests.Rraw b/inst/tests/tests.Rraw
index 6255f4f843..4ede2544c4 100644
--- a/inst/tests/tests.Rraw
+++ b/inst/tests/tests.Rraw
@@ -7490,7 +7490,8 @@ test(1536, duplicated(dt, incomparables=TRUE), error = "argument 'incomparables
 test(1537 , names(melt(dt, id.vars=1L, variable.name = "x", value.name="x")), c("x", "x.1", "x.2"), output = "Duplicate column names")
 
 # test for tables()
-test(1538, tables(), output = "Total:")
+test(1538.1, tables(), output = "Total:")
+test(1538.2, !is.unsorted(tables(order.col="NROW")$NROW))
 
 # uniqueN not support list-of-list: reverted #1224
 d1 <- data.table(a = 1:4, l = list(list(letters[1:2]),list(Sys.time()),list(1:10),list(letters[1:2])))
@@ -18262,3 +18263,6 @@ for (fun in funs) {
 }
 test(testnum+0.01, DT[, prod(l), g], error="GForce prod can only be applied to columns, not .SD or similar.")
 
+# tables() error when called from inside a function(...), #5197
+test(2221, (function(...) tables())(), output = "No objects of class data.table exist")
+