[f. BOARD v. + -ING1.]
1. Naut. The action of coming close up to, or of entering (a ship), usually in a hostile manner.
1591. Raleigh, Last Fight Rev., 21. The voleis, bourdings, and entrings.
1691. Lond. Gaz., No. 2719/3. He thrice repulsed the Enemy, who boarded him, but at the fourth boarding was taken.
1801. Nelson, in A. Duncan, Life (1806), 196. I directed the attack to be made by four divisions of boats, for boarding.
† 2. The action of approaching or accosting.
1546. St. Papers Hen. VIII., XI. 49. The bordyng of thEmperour soo playnly in the matier of the warre.
1636. Healey, Theophrast., 49. A troublesome bourding and assaulting of those, with whom we have to doe.
† 3. Naut. The action of tacking. Obs.
a. 1618. Raleigh, Royal Navy, 10. That shee stay well, when bourding and turning on a wind is required.
4. The act of covering or furnishing with boards; the mass of boards so used, a structure of boards.
1552. Huloet, Bourdinge, or ioynynge of bourdes together.
1663. Gerbier, Counsel, 22. The bording … is much subject to rott.
1847. Grote, Greece (1862), III. xli. 460. The wooden palisades and boarding … took fire.
5. Currying. The treatment of leather with a graining-board. (See Ure, Dict. Arts, III. 97.)
1870. Eng. Mech., 11 Feb., 534/3. When dry, repeal the boarding, and you will have a good Memel grain.
1885. H. M. Newhall in Harper’s Mag., Jan., 278/1. The ‘boarding’ making them [hides] very pliable.
6. The supplying of stated meals; the obtaining of food, or food and lodging, at another person’s house for a stipulated charge.
1531. Dial. Laws Eng., II. xxiv. (1638), 102. To pay for the chamber and boording a certain summe, [etc.].
a. 1667. Cowley, College, Wks. 1710, II. 621. For the lodging and boarding of young scholars.
1861. Rebel War Clerk’s Diary (1866), 255. The boarding of my family comes to more than my salary.
7. Comb., as (sense 1) boarding-brand, -bridge, -netting (a netting put round the ship to hinder the enemy’s attacks), -pike; (sense 4) boarding-shop; boarding-book, a register for recording particulars of every ship boarded (Smyth, Sailor’s Word-bk.); boarding-house, a house in which persons board; boarding-out, the obtaining of stated meals at another person’s house; the placing of destitute children in families where they are treated as members. Also BOARDING-SCHOOL.
1875. Bedford, Sailor’s Pocket-bk., vi. (ed. 2), 223. When boarding foreign men-of-war the *boarding book should not be taken on board.
1814. Byron, Corsair, I. vii. Be the edge sharpen’d of my *boarding-brand.
1878. Bosw. Smith, Carthage, 105. Had they been less afraid of the *boarding bridges, [the left wing] must ere this have been victorious.
1823. Bentham, Not Paul, 355. The priests, in whose *boarding-house he was.
1837. Hawthorne, Amer. Note-Bks. (1871), I. 71. A nice, comfortable, boarding-house tavern without a bar.
1883. Mrs. H. M. Plunkett, in Harper’s Mag., Jan., 235/1. I was calling on an interesting friend in a high and narrow city boarding-house.
1833. Marryat, P. Simple (1863), 252. The *boarding nettings … were tied up to the yard-arms, and presented a formidable obstacle to our success.
1863. Fawcett, Pol. Econ., IV. vi. (1876), 608. The *boarding-out system has lately been engrafted on our poor-law.
1886. Pall Mall Gaz., 1 Jan., 4/1. Boarding-out … means the placing in select homes, and with select foster-parents, destitute healthy children under the age of twelve years.
1801. Hist. Europe, in Ann. Reg., 269/1. Our men were provided with *Boarding-pikes, tomahawks and cutlasses only.
1835. Marryat, Pacha, v. We received them with … boarding-pikes.
1843. Penny Mag., XI. 378. The *‘boarding-shop’ … wherein all the operations are conducted for binding books in cloth boards.
