handboard

English

Etymology

From hand +‎ board.

Noun

handboard (plural handboards)

1. A board that is held in the hand or attached by a strap, used like a paddle when bodysurfing.

   Synonym: handplane

   • 1967, Midget Farrelly, The Surfing Life, page 183:

     The usual handboard is made of thin light wood such as plywood, about a foot long and nine inches wide, with a curved front, straight sides, and a sawn-off rear end.

   • 1999, Bruce Jenkins, North Shore Chronicles: Big-wave Surfing in Hawaii, page 73:

     "All I see him doing is riding this handboard," says Nellis.

   • 2011, John R. K. Clark, “Traditional Hawaiian Surf Sports”, in Hawaiian Surfing: Traditions from the Past, Honolulu, Haw.: University of Hawaiʻi Press, section “Kaha Nalu. Bodysurfing”, page 80:

     In the 1930s, some people were riding small boards, about the size of a kickboard in a swimming pool. One guy came out with a handboard with a strap on it, but it never caught on. — Wally Froiseth. dec 3, 2007. The first handboard contests were held in 1969 by Chuck Shipman, who worked for the City and County of Honolulu as an ocean recreation specialist.

   • 2019, Rudy rucker, Million Mile Road Trip:

     Villy focuses on the saucer pearl like a bodysurfer leaning into a handboard.

2. A tablet-sized surface for writing or displaying text and images.
   • 1883 August, George Jacob Holyoake, “American and Canadian Notes”, in The Nineteenth Century, volume 14, page 298:

     Having occasion for a writing handboard, such as could be bought in London for 2s. 6d. or less, I was charged 7s. 6d. for one in Montreal.

   • 1920, Construction Methods & Equipment, page 15, column 1:

     These forms can be fastened to a handboard by means of thumb tacks and some blank pieces of paper for use in keeping tab on various features can be fastened in a bunch by a string and attached to the board.

   • 1993, Read, page 32:

     This principle is followed during Stage 1 in the use of a phonics handboard. The teacher uses the handboard to start with something familiar to the students, the spoken word.

   • 2002, Holly Lisle, Vincalis the Agitator:

     He leaned his head close to his handboard and engaged in furious scribbling with his stylus, doing figures and checking results at a speed that suggested long practice.

   • 2005, Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars, page 198:

     On the wall behind him hangs a tablet or handboard on which is pasted an account of his legend and miracles ( Pl. 77).

3. A small hand-painted wooden sign, especially one indicating the direction (and possibly distance) to a particular location.
   • 1868, J. Peter Lesley, Man's Origin and Destiny, page 336:

     A schoolmaster's etymology is a stupid affair, a handboard at the entrance of a cul-de-sac, or blind alley.

   • 1896, Medical Brief: A Monthly Journal of Scientific Medicine and Surgery, page 702, column 1:

     I am not one, Mr. Editor, who would discard the knowledge gained by vivisection or physiological medicine; they have their place, but at best can but serve as handboards to guide us on to grander truths, learned clinically.

   • 1898, New York Teachers' Monographs - Volume 1, page 51:

     At the foot of Whitehall a “handboard" advised vessels where to anchor.

   • 1901, Historical Papers and Addresses of the Lancaster County Historical Society, page 122:

     Milestones were required to be placed on the side of the road, beginning at the distance of one mile west of the Schuylkill, and extending thence to the borough of Lancaster, on which the distance each stone was from the west bounds of Philadelphia, and handboards telling the distances to the nearest gates and turnpikes.

   • 2020, S.S Haldeman, Pennsylvania Dutch, page 9:

     A German botanist gave 'Gandoge' as the locality of an American plant; a package sent by express to 'Sevaber' (an English name), and a letter posted to the town of 'Scur E Quss, Nu Yourck,' arrived safely; and I have seen a handboard directing the traveller to the English-named town of 'Bintgrof'.

4. A device for securing, supporting, or guiding the hand; a handrest or splint.
   • 1897, Illinois. Appellate Court, Edwin Burritt Smith, Martin L. Newell, Reports of Cases Decided in the Appellate Courts of the State of Illinois, page 165:

     The scaffold was reached by a ladder projecting about a foot above the top of the scaffold , and then a handboard , fastened on one side , extended between one and two feet higher than the ladder .

   • 1998, Ada Lawrence Plumer, Faye Cosentino, Plumer's Principles and Practice of Intravenous Therapy, page 491:

     A short handboard may be required to limit wrist motion . If restraints are necessary they should be applied around the handboard, not the patient's wrist, as this could cause arterial pressure interference and increase the risk of catheter kinking or dislodgement.

   • 2013, Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, page 47:

     Disclosed herein is a handboard assembly for securing a hand and forearm of a patient undergoing a carpal tunnel surgery.

   • 2014, Bruno Bissonnette, Pediatric Anesthesia, page 1109:

     The hand is slightly extended on a short handboard with the help of folded 4 × 4 sponges before sterile preparation and draping.

   • 2017, David C. C Berry, Michael G. Miller, Leisha M. Berry, Athletic and Orthopedic Injury Assessment, page 113:

     The “Paoloni, Appleyard, and Murrell System” consists of a vertical handboard attached to a horizontal level arm, which is attached to a tensile cord and load cell used to collect force data. Subjects grasp a coronally aligned handboard with the thumb on the side of the handboard nearest their body and the other four digits on the side farthest from their body, ensuring pronation of the forearm.

5. A long narrow board with a catch for holding a dart, spear, or harpoon used as a throwing device.
   • 1820, The History of Greenland, page 141:

     If the oar is lost past recovery, they attempt to jerk themselves upwards by striking the water with the handboard of the harpoon, or a knife, or even the palm of the hand; but this experiment rarely succeeds.

   • 1892, Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, page 211:

     The weapon is in very general use at Point Barrow , and is always thrown from the boat with a handboard ( to be described below ) .

   • 2018, William Coxe, Account of the Russian Discoveries between Asia and America, page 61:

     Their weapons are bows and arrows, lances and darts, which they throw like the Greenlanders to the distance of sixty yards by means of a little handboard.

6. A flat surface with a handle on one side, used by a mason or plasterer; a hawk or mortarboard.
   • 1914, Supreme Court Apellate Division-Fourth Department: Record on Appeal, page 121:

     Get the handboard and the trowel , each of us got that, Bancroft had one, too, and he lifted the stuff off from the board and give it up to us.

   • 1990, Harold Bailey, David W. Hancock, Brickwork 1 and Associated Studies, page 6:

     This is a small handboard used with a pointing trowel and its purpose is to support small amounts of pointing mortar ( figure 1.31 ) .

   • 2007, Les Goring, Manual of First and Second Fixing Carpentry, page 54:

     In these situations, the plasterer uses a floating or skimming trowel, a handboard (hawk) with which to repeatedly carry the plaster to the wall, and a 'board and stand' from which to feed the material onto the hawk.

7. An artist's palette.
   • 1710, John White, Art's Treasury of Rarities and Curious Inventions, page 47:

     Take a small quantity of White, and twice as much Vermillion and Lake, temper these with the flat of a Knife's blade upon your Pallet, or Handboard,, and use it for the deepest Carnation of the Face, adding moreover to a small part of it more white, and reserve that for a ligher Carnation.

8. (obsolete) A washboard.
   • 1830, Sir David Brewster, The Edinburgh Encyclopaedia, page 266:

     If it does, add water in small quantities at a time, until the ley, when put upon the handboard, does not run down from the soap, but appears as it were just starting from the soap.

9. (obsolete) A salver or tray for carrying items such as dishes.
   • 1797, Alethea Lewis, Disobedience, page 50:

     Lady Caroline again called, "Davison," and Mrs. Davison replying she was coming, took up the handboard, and once more left Mary in darkness.

   • 1811, B. Cook, “Method of producing Heat, Light, and various useful Articles, from Pit-coal”, in Philosophical Magazine, volume 37, page 332:

     I have sent a waiter, or handboard, japanned with varnish made from this residuum, and the volatile oil above mentioned.

10. (leatherworking) A hand tool used to apply pressure to skins in order to finish them.
    • 1847, William Newton, “Recent Patents”, in The London journal of arts and sciences, page 314:

      In order to distinguish the ordinary kinds of knitted gloves from those which are formed out of the improved hosiery fabric, the patentee proposes to finish those made under his patent upon a hand-board, similar to that used in the finishing of leather gloves; whereby they will assume a fullness approaching to the form of the human hand, in contradistinction to the flat appearance produced by employing the flat hand-board.

    • 1933, United States. Department of the Treasury, Treasury Decisions Under Customs and Other Laws, page 650:

      Sides or skins finished by folding with grain side in and rubbing the surface together under pressure of an instrument known as a handboard .

Verb

handboard (third-person singular simple present handboards, present participle handboarding, simple past and past participle handboarded)

1. To bodysurf using a handboard.
2. To finish leather using a handboard.
   • 1902, Luggage and Leather Goods, page 50:

     This is obtained by a method of handboarding instead of the usual process of embossing.

   • 1941, “Leather Terminology”, in Establishing and Operating a Shoe Repair Business (Industrial Series; No. 17), page 166:

     Comber and gill box apron leather is soft, mellow, and tough, tanned from steer hides, heavily stuffed, and usually handboarded or otherwise softened.

   • 1984, Changing Villages, page 39:

     It is slightly handboarded to remove the dried-up chemicals.