waterboard
waterboard noun: a board set up to windward in a boat, to keep out water.
Noun
waterboard (plural waterboards)
- A board set up to windward in a boat, to keep out water.
- A public commission charged with overseeing water quality in a particular area.
- The waterboard argued that the quality of the water was good […]2005, Ruth M. Mourik, Did Water Kill the Cows?, page 167
Verb
waterboard (third-person singular simple present waterboards, present participle waterboarding, simple past and past participle waterboarded)
- To subject to waterboarding, to pour water over a cloth covering the face and breathing passages of an immobilized captive.
- We waterboarded the suspect, but he refused to confess.
Forms of waterboard
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | waterboards |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | waterboards |
| present participle | waterboarding |
| past participle | waterboarded |
| past | waterboarded |
Origin of waterboard
From Middle English water boarde, waterbord, equivalent to water + board. Compare West Frisian wetterboard (“waterboard”), Dutch waterbord (“waterboard”), German Wassertafel (“waterboard”), Danish vandbræt (“waterboard”), Swedish vattenbräda (“waterboard”), Icelandic vatnsbretti (“waterboard”).
Questions about waterboard
- What does waterboard mean?
- Waterboard means a board set up to windward in a boat, to keep out water.
- What part of speech is waterboard?
- Waterboard can be a noun or a verb.
- What is the plural of waterboard?
- The plural of waterboard is waterboards.
Words near waterboard in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: waterboard (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: “waterboard.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/waterboard. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.