noun
Usage
What does floorboard mean? A floorboard is one of the usually wooden planks that make up a floor.It usually refers to a board of plywood used to make a subfloor—the rough floor beneath a finished floor. Many houses are constructed using floorboards to create a subfloor, which is then often covered with materials like hardwood, carpet, tile, linoleum, or some form of laminate flooring.The word floorboard means something else in the context of vehicles—it refers to the floor of a car or truck.This sense of the word is the basis of the slang verb floorboard, meaning to press a vehicle’s accelerator (gas pedal) as far down as possible (all the way to the floor) in order to go as fast as possible. The word floor is more commonly used to mean the same thing. Both terms are often followed by it, as in As soon as the light turned green, I floorboarded it so I could get way ahead of all the other cars. Example: I pried up a loose floorboard hoping to find treasure under, but there was just a lot of dust and dirt.
Etymology
Origin of floorboard
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Mother and Father crisscrossed the floorboards, wiggled the front door latch, listened to the individual creak of each stair.
From Literature
I swept the floor in our house so many times it was a wonder I didn’t wear out the floorboards.
From Literature
She rocked so vigorously that the floorboards beneath her began to creak.
From Literature
Brushes - some stuck fast - poke out of paint pots piled across the floorboards, table and chairs.
From BBC
Danny took a step and the wooden floorboards made a sound that reminded him of his eighty-year.old neighbor moaning about her joints.
From Literature
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
