duckboard

English

Etymology

Possibly a metaphorical use of a name for a board connecting a duck hutch to a yard.[1]

Noun

duckboard (plural duckboards)

  1. One of a long series of boards laid from side to side as a path across wet or muddy ground; normally used in plural.
    In an attempt to alleviate the problem, wooden planking, known as duckboards, was placed at the bottom of trenches and across other areas of muddy or waterlogged ground.
  2. Wooden, low walkway or short part of a path with one or more planks, logs, or boards laid after each other lengthwise, often two planks wide; also called bog board, bog bridge, or puncheon.
  3. A panel of wooden slats typically lain on a concrete floor in a workshop. Compliance of slats arranged in two crossed layers reduces fatigue for a person operating a machine tool or working at a bench.

Coordinate terms

Translations

References
  1. C. E. W. Bean (1917) Letters from France, Cassell and Company, pages 38–39: “I have said before that you do not walk on the bottom of the trench as you did in Gallipoli, but on a narrow wooden causeway not unlike the bridge on which ducks wander down from the henhouse to the yard—colloquially known as the “duck-boards.”
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