backboard

English

Pronunciation

• Hyphenation: back‧board

Etymology 1

back +‎ board

Noun

backboard (plural backboards)

1. (basketball) The flat vertical surface to which the basket is attached.
2. (tennis) A flat vertical wall with the image of a tennis net drawn or painted on it, designed to practice hitting against such that the ball rebounds.
3. (medicine) A spine board.
4. A board placed at the back of a cart, boat, etc.

Translations

Verb

backboard (third-person singular simple present backboards, present participle backboarding, simple past and past participle backboarded)

1. (medicine, transitive) To place (a patient) on a spine board.

Etymology 2

Likely a borrowing from Dutch bakboord (“portside”) or from Middle Low German backbort, bakbōrt (“portside”). Old English bæcbord (“larboard, portside”) did not survive (in that form) into Middle English; Scottish texts of the 1500s have forms like bawbord, baburd and babord, possibly borrowed from French bâbord; later texts with Scots backburd, backber may have borrowed it from Old Norse bakborði (“portside”). Cognate with West Frisian bakboard (“portside”), German Backbord (“portside”), Danish bagbord (“portside”).

Noun

backboard (usually uncountable, plural backboards)

1. (nautical) The port or larboard side of a ship

   Synonyms: port, larboard, leeboard, left

   Antonym: starboard

   • 2013, Klaus Backhaus, Hurdle Race Marketing:

     And to delight in the fact that a hole on the backboard side means that you're safe because you're sitting on the starboard side seems to me to be less than clever.

   • 2014, Jeff Bredenberg, The Dream Vessel:

     But the gangplank was no longer in place. It had folded itself in half and clamped into storage position, becoming part of the starboard rail. Big Tom peered over the rail and saw nothing but sea. All around. Starboard, backboard, forward, aft.