backboard

plural backboards

1. ball gamesThe flat vertical surface to which the basket is attached.
2. hobbiesA 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.
3. medicineA spine board.
4. A board placed at the back of a cart, boat, behind a signal, etc.

   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

   1 more example

   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 28, S. C. Crowther-Smith, “Lower Quadrant”, in Railway Magazine, page 422

present singular third person backboards · participle present backboarding · participle past backboarded · past backboarded

1. transitivemedicineTo place (a patient) on a spine board.

plural backboards

1. uncountableusuallynauticalThe port or larboard side of a ship

   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

   1 more example

   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

   Synonyms: port, larboard, leeboard, left · Antonyms: starboard