board

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A long, flat, thin piece of wood or other material.

   They nailed boards across the broken window.

2. 2
   noun

   A group of people who manage or supervise an organization.

   The board meets once a month to make decisions.

3. 3
   verb

   To get on a train, bus, ship, or plane.

   Passengers should board the plane through gate twelve.

4. 4
   noun

   A flat surface marked for playing a game.

   He set up the board and we began to play chess.

Appears in

Simplified etymology

Board is an Old English word used for both a table and the planks from which one could be made. Its table sense gave rise to company board, referring to the members who typically meet around a table. In nautical use board meant “the side of a ship,” a sense preserved in on board, overboard, and shipboard.

A wooden board 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”) + *-dʰh₁eti or *bʰerH- (“to pierce; to strike”) + *-dʰh₁eti. The senses "food" and "council" are by metonymy from the sense "table." Cognates Cognate with Scots buird (“board; table”), Yola borde (“table”), West Frisian boerd (“board”), Dutch bord (“dish, plate; board, plank; sign”), boord (“border, boundary; bank, shore”), German Bord (“shelf”)…

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External links

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• Cambridge Dictionary
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