Board

Pronunciation

• IPA: /bɔː(r)d/
• Rhymes: -ɔː(r)d
• Homophones: bored

From Middle English bord, Old English bord ("board"), from Proto-Germanic *burdÄ…,

from Proto-Indo-European *bÊ°rdÊ° ("board"), from *bÊ°erdÊ° ("to cut").

Full definition of board

Noun

1. A relatively long, wide and thin piece of any material, usually wood or similar, often for use in construction or furniture-making.
• 1898, Winston Churchill, The Celebrity Chapter 2, Sunning himself on the board steps, I saw for the first time Mr. Farquhar Fenelon Cooke. He was dressed out in broad gaiters and bright tweeds, like an English tourist, and his face might have belonged to Dagon, idol of the Philistines.
2. A device (e.g., switchboard) containing electrical switches and other controls and designed to control lights, sound, telephone connections, etc.
3. A flat surface with markings for playing a board game.Each player starts the game with four counters on the board.
4. Short for blackboard, whiteboard, chessboard, surfboard, etc.
5. A committee that manages the business of an organization, e.g., a board of directors.
   We have to wait to hear back from the board.
6. (uncountable) Regular meals or the amount paid for them in a place of lodging.
   Room and board
7. (nautical) The side of a ship.
• DrydenNow board to board the rival vessels row.
8. (nautical) The distance a sailing vessel runs between tacks when working to windward.
9. (ice hockey) The wall that surrounds an ice hockey rink, often in plural.
10. (archaic) A long, narrow table, like that used in a medieval dining hall.
• MiltonFruit of all kinds ...
  She gathers, tribute large, and on the board
  Heaps with unsparing hand.
11. Paper made thick and stiff like a board, for book covers, etc.; pasteboard.to bind a book in boards

Derived terms

Verb

1. (transitive) To step or climb onto or otherwise enter a ship, aircraft, train or other conveyance.It is time to board the aircraft.
• TottenYou board an enemy to capture her, and a stranger to receive news or make a communication.
2. (transitive) To provide someone with meals and lodging, usually in exchange for money.to board one's horse at a livery stable
3. (transitive) To receive meals and lodging in exchange for money.
• SpectatorWe ... board in the same house.
4. (transitive, nautical) To capture an enemy ship by going alongside and grappling her, then invading her with a boarding party
5. (intransitive) To obtain meals, or meals and lodgings, statedly for compensation
6. (transitive, now rare) To approach (someone); to make advances to, accost.
• 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, II.iv:Ere long with like againe he boorded mee,
  Saying, he now had boulted all the floure ...
7. To cover with boards or boarding.to board a house
• Cowperthe boarded hovel
8. To hit (someone) with a wooden board.

From backboard

Noun

1. (basketball, informal) A rebound.

Anagrams

• abord
• broad, B road
• dobra, Dobra