Hobbies, Lifestyle, Sports, Tennis A flat vertical wall with the image of a tennis net drawn or painted on it, designed to practice hitting against such that the ball rebounds.
A board placed at the back of a cart, boat, behind a signal, etc.
The L.B.S.C.R. favoured backboards for signals wherever these helped visibility. The Great Eastern also made extensive use of backboards.1957 June 23, S. C. Crowther-Smith, “Lower Quadrant”, in Railway Magazine, page 422:
He […]had ridden the remainder of the way clinging to the backboard of a cotton wagon.1960 July 11, Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, Philadelphia, Pa.; New York, N.Y.: J[oshua] B[allinger] Lippincott Company, →OCLC:
backboard
verb
Etymology From back + board.
1
Medicine, Sciences To place (a patient) on a spine board.
backboard
noun
Etymology Likely a borrowing from Dutch bakboord (“portside”) or from Middle Low German backbort, bakbōrt (“portside”). Old English bæcbord (“larboard, portside”) did not survive (in that form) into Middle English; Scottish texts of the 1500s have forms like bawbord, baburd and babord, possibly borrowed from French bâbord; later texts with Scots backburd, backber may have borrowed it from Old Norse bakborði (“portside”). Cognate with West Frisian bakboard (“portside”), German Backbord (“portside”), Danish bagbord (“portside”).
And to delight in the fact that a hole on the backboard side means that you're safe because you're sitting on the starboard side seems to me to be less than clever.2013, Klaus Backhaus, Hurdle Race Marketing:
But the gangplank was no longer in place. It had folded itself in half and clamped into storage position, becoming part of the starboard rail. Big Tom peered over the rail and saw nothing but sea. All around. Starboard, backboard, forward, aft.2014, Jeff Bredenberg, The Dream Vessel: