[f. FOOT sb. + BOARD.]
1. A board to support the foot or feet; a board to stand on; e.g., a small platform at the back of a carriage on which the footman stands; a board upon which to step when entering or alighting from a carriage; the foot-rest of a driving-box; in U.S. the foot-plate (see FOOT sb. 35) of a locomotive engine.
1766. Smollett, Trav., II. xxv. 5. Those who either will not or cannot bear the sea, and are equally averse to riding, may be carried in a common chair, provided with a foot-board, on men’s shoulders: this is the way of travelling practised by the ladies of Nice, in crossing the mountains to Turin; but it is very tedious and expensive, as the men must be often relieved. Ibid., II. xxvii. 54. The ladies sit within, and the cicisbei stand on the foot-boards, on each side of the coach, entertaining them with their discourse.
1815. Sporting Mag., XLV. 184. A foot-board behind for the accommodation of a servant.
1825. J. Neal, Brother Jonathan, II. 58. His feet rested on a foot-board, which, in America, was attached, of course, to the rough axle-tree.
1874. Knight, Dict. Mech., I. 902/1. Foot-board. 3. The platform on which the driver and stoker of a locomotive stand. A foot-plate.
1885. Miss Braddon, Wyllard’s Weird, I. ii. 49–50. She was standing on the footboard and clinging to the hand-rail, with her face to the [railway-]coach.
b. A treadle.
1874. in Knight, Dict. Mech.
1888. Lockwood’s Dict. Terms Mech. Engin., Treadle, or Foot Board.—A strip of wood actuated by the foot and connected to the crank of a lathe, grindstone, drill, or other small machine.
2. An upright board set across the foot of a bedstead.
1843. Mrs. Carlyle, Lett., I. 232. At last, still groping, with my hand. I felt the footboard at my head!
