Word.ws English Dictionary

freeboard

freeboard noun: the vertical distance between the waterline and the uppermost watertight deck of a vessel, or the vertical distance from the waterline up to the top of the gunwale (of an open boat).

freeboard: the vertical distance between the waterline and the uppermost watertight deck of a vessel, or the...
Image: Tosaka, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun (1)

freeboard (plural freeboards)

  1. The vertical distance between the waterline and the uppermost watertight deck of a vessel, or the vertical distance from the waterline up to the top of the gunwale (of an open boat).
    • By the time the whole team and all its equipment were loaded on board, there wasn't much freeboard anymore, and if the weather had been worse we might have had to postpone the trip.
  2. The distance between a water level and the top of something that contains or restrains it (such as a dam).
  3. The distance between the top of sea ice and the water level.

Noun (2)

freeboard (plural freeboards)

  1. A type of skateboard which simulates the movement of a snowboard when used on a downhill course, allowing snowboarding techniques, which has an addition of two centerline casters that extend below the traditional skateboard wheels and bogies.

Forms of freeboard

pluralfreeboards

Origin of freeboard

From being a skateboard with an additional degree of freedom of movement (yaw) and some additional rocking (roll) movement.

Words formed from freeboard

Phrases with freeboard

Questions about freeboard

What does freeboard mean?
Freeboard means the vertical distance between the waterline and the uppermost watertight deck of a vessel, or the vertical distance from the waterline up to the top of the gunwale (of an open boat).
What part of speech is freeboard?
Freeboard is a noun.
What is the plural of freeboard?
The plural of freeboard is freeboards.

Words near freeboard in the dictionary

  1. freebleed
  2. freebleeder
  3. freebleeders
  4. freebleeding
  5. freeblown
  6. freeboard
  7. freeboard deck
  8. freeboard decks
  9. freeboards
  10. Freebody
  11. freeboob

Source and license

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