Boards

How to spell boards

6 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce boards

What does boards mean?

1. nounFlat lengths of sawn timber, or rigid panels used for building, display, or games.
2. verbThird-person singular form of 'board': to get onto a ship, aircraft, train, or bus.
3. nounGroups of people who manage or govern organisations, such as companies or charities.

Boards in a sentence

• noun

  The carpenter sanded the floor boards before varnishing them.

• verb

  She always boards the early train to avoid the rush.

• noun

  Several charity boards met to discuss the new funding rules.

• noun

  Old notices were still pinned to the cork boards in the hallway.

• verb

  He boards the flight at the last possible minute every time.

• noun

  Company boards across the sector approved similar pay increases.

Where does boards come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word descends from the Old English 'bord', a native Anglo-Saxon noun that meant both a flat plank of wood and, by extension, a table to eat at. The same root carried a second strand of meaning, the side or rim of a ship, which is why sailors still speak of going 'on board' and of throwing things 'overboard'. From the plain idea of a plank came the sense of a table where business was done, and then the group of people who sat around that table, giving us the modern 'board of directors'. The Germanic stem also produced cognates such as German 'Bord' and Dutch 'boord', all pointing back to the same notion of a wooden plank or edge. The verb meaning 'to get on a vehicle' grew from the nautical 'on board', and the spelling stays regular: simply add -s to 'board', with the silent r preserving the long 'or' sound.

How the word is built

• board (plank, table)
• -s (plural noun / third-person verb ending)