board
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: enpr: bôd
ipa: /bɔːd/
enpr: bôrd
ipa: /bɔɹd/
note: rhotic, without the horse–hoarse merger
enpr: bōrd
ipa: /bo(ː)ɹd/
note: rhotic, without the horse–hoarse merger
note: non-rhotic, without the horse–hoarse merger
enpr: bōəd
ipa: /boəd/
note: non-rhotic, without the horse–hoarse merger
rhymes: -ɔː(ɹ)d
homophone: bored
homophone: baud
homophone: bawd (non-rhotic, horse–hoarse merger)
Forms: form: boards
form: boarding
form: boarded
form: boarded
Etymology: From Middle English bord, from Old English bord, from Proto-West Germanic *bord, from Proto-Germanic *burdą (“board; plank; table”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰerdʰ- (“to cut”). The senses "food" and "council" are by metonymy from the sense "table."
Senses: examples: text: It is time to board the aircraft.
text: You board an enemy to capture her, and a stranger to receive news or make a communication.
ref: 1862, Benjamin J. Totten, Naval Text-Book, and Dictionary, for the use of the Midshipmen of the U.S. Navy:
text: Yuan-chu-min history, that of the island’s southern Min speaking Han Chinese, is in evidence farther east, in Nan-t'ou county. After reaching the heart of Nan-t'ou' city, the county’s center of government and also home to Taiwan’s provincial government, one can board a bus to ascend the mountains that dominate much of the central and eastern landscape of the island.
ref: 1999, Murray A. Rubinstein, editor, Taiwan: A New History, M.E. Sharpe, →ISBN, →OCLC, →OL, page ix:
text: I have just enough time for a "swifty" in the reopened (but on this day just about to close) '301' bar on Platform 4 before boarding a two-car Northern Class 158 working the 1824 to Leeds.
ref: 2022 November 2, Paul Bigland, “New trains, old trains, and splendid scenery”, in RAIL, number 969, page 57:
antonyms: alight
disembark
glosses: To step or climb onto or otherwise enter a ship, aircraft, train or other conveyance.
examples: text: to board one’s horse at a livery stable
glosses: To provide someone with meals and lodging, usually in exchange for money.
examples: text: We are several of us, gentlemen and ladies, who board in the same house,
ref: February 8, 1712, Charity Frost, The Spectator No. 296 (letter to the editor)
glosses: To receive meals and lodging in exchange for money.
topics: nautical
transport
glosses: To (at least attempt to) capture an enemy ship by going alongside and grappling her, then invading her with a boarding party.
glosses: To obtain meals, or meals and lodgings, statedly for compensation
examples: text: Ere long with like againe he boorded mee, / Saying, he now had boulted all the floure […]
ref: 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto IV”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:
glosses: To approach (someone); to make advances to, accost.
examples: text: to board a house
text: the boarded hovel
ref: 1782–1785, William Cowper, “(please specify the page)”, in The Task, a Poem, […], London: […] J[oseph] Johnson; […], →OCLC:
glosses: To cover with boards or boarding.
glosses: To hit (someone) with a wooden board.
glosses: To write something on a board, especially a blackboard or whiteboard.
Derived terms: boarding ax
boarding axe
boarding gate
boarding house
boarding-master
boarding pass
boarding pike
boarding school