Word.ws English Dictionary

boarding

/ˈbɔː.dɪŋ/

boarding is the present participle and gerund of board.

Noun

boarding (countable and uncountable, plural boardings)

  1. The act of people getting aboard a ship, aircraft, train, bus, etc.; embarkation.
    • Load profiles are a standard analysis tool showing passenger activity (boardings, alightings) and passenger load at each stop along a route in a single direction.2000, Peter Gregory Furth, Data Analysis for Bus Planning and Monitoring, page 24
  2. The act of a sailor or boarding party attacking an enemy ship by boarding it.
  3. A structure made of boards.
  4. (uncountable) The riding of a skateboard.
  5. A penalty called for pushing into the boards.

Meaning of board

Verb

board (third-person singular simple present boards, present participle boarding, simple past and past participle boarded)

  1. (transitive) To step or climb onto or otherwise enter a ship, aircraft, train or other conveyance.
    • It is time to board the aircraft.
  2. (transitive) To provide someone with meals and lodging, usually in exchange for money.
    • to board one’s horse at a livery stable
  3. (transitive) To receive meals and lodging in exchange for money.
    • We are several of us, gentlemen and ladies, who board in the same house,February 8, 1712, Charity Frost, The Spectator No. 296 (letter to the editor)
  4. (transitive) To (at least attempt to) capture an enemy ship by going alongside and grappling her, then invading her with a boarding party.
  5. (intransitive) To obtain meals, or meals and lodgings, statedly for compensation
  6. (archaic, transitive) To approach (someone); to make advances to, accost.
    • Ere long with like againe he boorded mee, / Saying, he now had boulted all the floure […]1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto IV”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC

See all 25 meanings of board

Forms of boarding

pluralboardings

Origin of boarding

By surface analysis, board + -ing.

Words formed from boarding

Phrases with boarding

12 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with boarding

Questions about boarding

What does boarding mean?
Boarding means the act of people getting aboard a ship, aircraft, train, bus, etc.; embarkation.
What is boarding the present participle and gerund of?
Boarding is the present participle and gerund of board.
What part of speech is boarding?
Boarding is a noun.
How do you pronounce boarding?
Boarding is pronounced /ˈbɔː.dɪŋ/.
What is the plural of boarding?
The plural of boarding is boardings.

Words near boarding in the dictionary

  1. boardie
  2. boardier
  3. boardies
  4. boardiest
  5. boardin'
  6. boarding
  7. boarding ax
  8. boarding axe
  9. boarding axes
  10. boarding card
  11. boarding cards

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: boarding (page history and authors); board (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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-boarding.wav.

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