Starboard

How to spell starboard

9 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce starboard

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does starboard mean?

1. nounThe right-hand side of a ship or aircraft when you are facing forward toward the bow.

Starboard in a sentence

• The captain ordered the crew to keep all cargo lashed down on the starboard side.

• A fishing boat appeared off the starboard bow as the ferry left the harbour.

Where does starboard come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a native English word that traces back to the Old English steorbord, a compound of steor, meaning a steering oar or rudder, and bord, meaning the side of a ship. Before the central stern rudder was invented, a vessel was steered by a large oar mounted on the right-hand side of the hull, so that side became the steorbord, literally the steering side. Over centuries of use the word smoothed down to its modern form, and the helpful clue is that the first syllable has nothing to do with stars in the sky; it preserves the old word for steer. The matching term for the left side, port, replaced an earlier word larboard precisely because larboard and starboard sounded too alike when shouted across a deck. Knowing that starboard is really steer-board explains why it keeps that opening star- spelling rather than anything sounding like stir or stern.

How the word is built

• star- (from Old English steor: a steering oar)
• -board (from bord: the side of a ship)