boards

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of board.

   Workers nailed fresh boards over the broken fence.

   The two charity boards agreed to merge their efforts.

   Note

   A regular plural with one gap in its coverage. It serves every countable meaning of the singular, from planks and switchboards to boards of directors. The meals sense is uncountable, though: a lodger pays for board, never for boards. The spelling is shared with the verb form, so in a phrase like "the company boards" it is the grammar that settles which one you are reading.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of board.

   The airline boards passengers by group number.

   Every officer boards the vessel for a routine inspection.

   Note

   Usually followed by what is boarded: she boards the train, the crew boards the enemy ship. Its object can also be a person, so that someone who boards students is providing them with meals and lodging. Used without an object, "boards with a family" means the subject is the one paying for those meals and lodging. An archaic sense, to accost someone, survives mainly in older texts.

3. 3
   nouncolloquialpluralwith the

   The stage of a theater or playhouse, where performers act before an audience.

   The old comedian still loved the roar of the crowd from the boards.

   Touring companies brought serious drama to the boards of small-town halls.

   Similarstage

   Note

   The stage in this sense is always plural and almost always takes "the": performers appear on the boards or are heard from the boards, never on a board. Drop the article and the phrase slides back toward literal planks. The tone is conversational and a little affectionate, more at home in talk about an actor's career than in a technical account of stagecraft.

4. 4
   nounplural

   The wall enclosing an ice hockey rink, against which players check opponents and off which the puck rebounds.

   A clean hit drove the forward hard into the boards near center ice.

   The defenseman banked the puck off the boards to clear his zone.

   Similarwall

5. 5
   nounplural

   Exams taken to gain admission to college or to qualify to practice a profession.

   Most of his class spent the spring cramming for the college boards.

   She finally cleared her nursing boards after two attempts.

   Similarexams, examinations

   Note

   The name is borrowed from the tests of the College Board, which is why "the college boards" sounds so natural. From admissions testing, the word spread to the licensing examinations of the professions, as in "nursing boards" or "medical boards". It is always plural in this sense: you sit or pass your boards, and a single paper is never "a board".

6. 6
   nouncolloquialplural

   The stiff covers that form the hardcover binding of a book.

   Water had stained the boards of the old encyclopedia a dull brown.

   The printer chose thick boards to give the limited edition a sturdy feel.

   Similarcovers

   Note

   Publishing trade talk, used most naturally in the phrase "in boards". A book that comes out in boards is out in hardcover, and the contrast it sets up is with the paperback that follows. In this use the word is always plural and refers to the edition's format, not to the physical covers. It suits informal shop talk better than a formal bibliographic description.

   The memoir appears in boards this autumn, with a paperback planned for next year.

   Collectors will pay more for the first printing in boards.

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