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board

Pronunciation: /bɔːd/

The English word “board” has 20 meanings listed here.

noun

  1. A relatively long, wide and thin piece of any material, usually wood or similar, often for use in construction or furniture-making.
  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.
  4. A committee that manages the business of an organization, e.g., a board of directors.
  5. Regular meals in a place of lodging; the price paid for them.
  6. The side of a ship.
  7. The distance a sailing vessel runs between tacks when working to windward.
  8. The wall that surrounds an ice hockey rink.
  9. A long, narrow table, like that used in a medieval dining hall.
  10. Paper made thick and stiff like a board, for book covers, etc.; pasteboard.
  11. A level or stage having a particular two-dimensional layout.
  12. The portion of the playing field where creatures or minions can be placed (or played, summoned, etc.).
  13. A container for holding pre-dealt cards that is used to allow multiple sets of players to play the same cards.
  14. A Philippine provincial or Uruguayan departmental assembly or council.

verb

  1. To step or climb onto or otherwise enter a ship, aircraft, train or other conveyance.
  2. To provide someone with meals and lodging, usually in exchange for money.
  3. To receive meals and lodging in exchange for money.
  4. To (at least attempt to) capture an enemy ship by going alongside and grappling her, then invading her with a boarding party.
  5. To obtain meals, or meals and lodgings, statedly for compensation
  6. To approach (someone); to make advances to, accost.

Etymology

Board (duplicate bridge) From Middle English boord, boorde, bord, bourd, burd, from Old English bord, from Proto-West Germanic *bord, from Proto-Germanic *burdą (“board, plank; edge; table”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰers- (“tip, top”) + *-dʰeti or *bʰerH- (“to pierce; to strike”) + *-dʰeti. The senses "food" and "council" are by metonymy from the sense "table". Cognates Cognate with Scots…

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