Dashboard

How to spell dashboard

9 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce dashboard

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does dashboard mean?

1. nounThe instrument panel facing the driver in a car or other vehicle.
2. nounA single screen that displays key data and controls for a system or service at a glance.

Dashboard in a sentence

• A warning light flashed on the dashboard as she started the engine.

• The sales team checks the dashboard each morning to see the latest figures.

• He left his sunglasses and parking ticket on the dashboard.

• She added a new chart to the analytics dashboard for the report.

Where does dashboard come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a transparent English compound of 'dash' and 'board', but its sense has travelled a surprising distance. The 'dash' here is the old verb meaning to strike or splash violently, and the original dashboard was a wooden or leather board fixed at the front of a horse-drawn carriage to stop mud and water being 'dashed' up by the horses' hooves. The word is recorded from the early 1800s in exactly that practical sense. When motor cars arrived, the panel in the same forward position kept the name, even though it now held the instruments and dials rather than blocking mud. In the late twentieth century software designers borrowed the car image, calling a single screen of key information and controls a dashboard. Because both parts are everyday words spelled as you would expect, the spelling holds no real trap.

How the word is built

• dash (to strike or splash)
• board (flat panel)