board
/boːd/
Word Rarity
Common
Frequency: 5.24 in modern English
8
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
1
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A relatively long, wide and thin piece of any material, usually wood or similar, often for use in construction or furniture-making.
Countable; Uncountable
noun
A device (e.g., switchboard) containing electrical switches and other controls and designed to control lights, sound, telephone connections, etc.
Countable; Uncountable
noun
Short for blackboard, whiteboard, chessboard, surfboard, circuit board, message board (on the Internet), bulletin board, etc.
Countable; Uncountable
Example Sentences
- "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."
- "Each player starts the game with four counters on the board."
- "We have to wait to hear back from the board."
- "board and lodging"
- "room and board"
- "His board was served by his landlady, the owner of the boarding house. [meals]"
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 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”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish bord (“plank; table”), Elfdalian buord (“table”), Faroese and Icelandic borð (“board, plank; table”), Gothic *𐌱𐌰𐌿𐍂𐌳 (*baurd, “board, plank”) (whence 𐍆𐍉𐍄𐌿𐌱𐌰𐌿𐍂𐌳 (fōtubaurd, “footstool”).
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /boːd/
- British English: /bɔːd/