backboard
noun, verb
Forms backboards backboarding backboarded
- noun (basketball) The flat vertical surface to which the basket is attached.
- noun (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.
- noun (medicine) A spine board.
- noun A board placed at the back of a cart, boat, behind a signal, etc.
- verb (medicine, transitive) To place (a patient) on a spine board.
- noun (nautical) The port or larboard side of a ship
Synonyms
Antonyms
Etymology
From back + board.
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”).
Webster’s 1913
- noun A board which supports the back wen one is sitting;
- noun A board serving as the back part of anything, as of a wagon.
Etymology [2nd back, n. + board.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “backboard”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details