Word.ws English Dictionary

across the board

across the board prepositional phrase: pertaining to all categories or things.

Prepositional phrase

  1. (idiomatic) Pertaining to all categories or things.
    • […]in favor of a straight across-the-board salary increase[…]1949, United States Congress Committee on Post Office and Civil Service, Hearings
    • A common technique (variously known as an emergency brake or meat axe budgeting) used by governments is across-the-board cuts;1983, A. Premchard, Government Budgeting and Expenditure: Theory and Practice
  2. Having an equal amount staked on a competitor placing first, second, or third.
  3. Of a move or sequence of play, made in response to developments occurring in the game, as opposed to pre-planned or according to theory.

across the board meaning in Tamil and Urdu

across the board in Tamil

நான்கு திசைகளிலும்

across the board in Urdu

بلا امتیاز, بلا تخصیص

Examples of across the board in a sentence

  • Chile provides the region's best example of a country that has successfully reformed its core public administration across the board.1998, Shahid Javed Burki, Guillermo Perry, Beyond the Washington Consensus: Institutions Matter:
  • "I like the young, andro look, but I've dated across the board—butches, femmes, trannies—and that really bothers Clara.2004, New York:

Forms of across the board

alternative formacross-the-board

Origin of across the board

Originated with horse racing, where an "across the board" bet was one which covered first, second and third on the betting board.

Questions about across the board

What does across the board mean?
Across the board means pertaining to all categories or things.
What is across the board in Tamil?
Across the board in Tamil is நான்கு திசைகளிலும். See Across the board meaning in Tamil.
How do you use across the board in a sentence?
Chile provides the region's best example of a country that has successfully reformed its core public administration across the board.
What part of speech is across the board?
Across the board is a prepositional phrase.

Words near across the board in the dictionary

  1. acrosporous
  2. across
  3. across country
  4. across from
  5. across lots
  6. across the board
  7. across the ditch
  8. across the line
  9. across the pond
  10. across the way
  11. across variable

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: across the board (page history and authors); across the board (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); across the board (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-across the board.ogg.

Cite this entry: “across the board.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/across_the_board. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.