/bɔːd/, /bɔɹd/, /bo(ː)ɹd/
OriginA wooden board
Board (duplicate bridge)
From Middle English bord, from Old English bord, from Proto-West Germanic *bord, from Proto-Germanic *burdą (“board; plank; table”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰerdʰ- (“to cut”). The senses "food" and "council" are by metonymy from the sense "table."
- countable, uncountableA relatively long, wide and thin piece of any material, usually wood or similar, often for use in construction or furniture-making.
“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 belonge”
- countable, uncountableA device (e.g., switchboard) containing electrical switches and other controls and designed to control lights, sound, telephone connections, etc.
- countable, uncountableA flat surface with markings for playing a board game.
“Each player starts the game with four counters on the board.”
- abbreviation, alt-of, countable, uncountableShort for blackboard, whiteboard, chessboard, surfboard, circuit board, message board (on the Internet), bulletin board, etc.
- countable, uncountableA committee that manages the business of an organization, e.g., a board of directors.
“We have to wait to hear back from the board.”
- uncountableRegular meals in a place of lodging; the price paid for them.
“board and lodging”
“room and board”
“His board was served by his landlady, the owner of the boarding house. [meals]”
- countable, uncountableThe side of a ship.
“Now board to board the rival vessels row.”
- countable, uncountableThe distance a sailing vessel runs between tacks when working to windward.
- countable, in-plural, often, uncountableThe wall that surrounds an ice hockey rink.
- archaic, countable, uncountableA long, narrow table, like that used in a medieval dining hall.
“Fruit of all kinds […] / She gathers, tribute large, and on the board / Heaps with unsparing hand.”
“1890, Algernon Blackwood, Christmas in England, Methodist Magazine Volume 32 pg 481.
The real beginning of the festivities is on Christmas-eve, when the large parties meet their friends from far and n”
“"A man," added Cripps, pointing at the MacQuibble, who took no manner of notice, but smoked impassively, "who comes to my hospitable board meanly disguised as an artist, and filches the table wine."”
- countable, uncountablePaper made thick and stiff like a board, for book covers, etc.; pasteboard.
“to bind a book in boards”
- countable, uncountableA level or stage having a particular two-dimensional layout.
“The object of the game is to move the smiley face over the preset board, in doing so removing the green squares and ending up at the exit […]”
“You are able to then change a color candy with any candy around the board, similar to the way you are able to with color bomb candies.”
- countable, uncountableThe portion of the playing field where creatures or minions can be placed (or played, summoned, etc.).
- countable, uncountableA container for holding pre-dealt cards that is used to allow multiple sets of players to play the same cards.
- Philippines, countable, uncountableA provincial assembly or council.
- informalA rebound.
- transitiveTo step or climb onto or otherwise enter a ship, aircraft, train or other conveyance.
“It is time to board the aircraft.”
“You board an enemy to capture her, and a stranger to receive news or make a communication.”
“Yuan-chu-min history, that of the island’s southern Min speaking Han Chinese, is in evidence farther east, in Nan-t'ou county. After reaching the heart of Nan-t'ou' city, the county’s center of govern”
- transitiveTo provide someone with meals and lodging, usually in exchange for money.
“to board one’s horse at a livery stable”
- transitiveTo receive meals and lodging in exchange for money.
“We are several of us, gentlemen and ladies, who board in the same house,”
- transitiveTo (at least attempt to) capture an enemy ship by going alongside and grappling her, then invading her with a boarding party.
- intransitiveTo obtain meals, or meals and lodgings, statedly for compensation
- archaic, transitiveTo approach (someone); to make advances to, accost.
“Ere long with like againe he boorded mee, / Saying, he now had boulted all the floure […]”
- To cover with boards or boarding.
“to board a house”
“the boarded hovel”
- To hit (someone) with a wooden board.
- transitiveTo write something on a board, especially a blackboard or whiteboard.
Formsboards(plural) · boards(present, singular, third-person) · boarding(participle, present) · boarded(participle, past) · boarded(past) · Boards(plural)