backboard

• Hyphenation: back‧board

back +‎ board

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 bounces back.
3. (medicine, first aid) A spine board.
4. A board placed at the back of a cart, boat, etc.

Likely a borrowing from Dutch bakboord (“portside”) or from Middle Low German backbort, bakbōrt (“portside”). Compare also Old Norse bakborði (“portside”), Old English bæcbord (“larboard, portside”). Cognate with Scots backburd, backber, babord (“portside”), West Frisian bakboard (“portside”), French bâbord (“portside”), German Backbord (“portside”).

backboard (usually uncountable, plural backboards)

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

• larboard
• port