1. A board on which knives are cleaned.
1848. Thackeray, Van. Fair, xxxvii. Raggles rose from the knife-board [= position of knife-boy] to the foot-board of the carriage.
1858. Simmonds, Dict. Trade, Knife-board, a piece of wood, plain, or cased with leather for cleaning and polishing table-knives.
2. A popular name for the original roof-seat on omnibuses consisting of a double bench placed length ways on the top.
1852. Leech, in Punch, 15 May (Cartoon). Oh? you dont catch me coming out on the knife board again to make ro-om for a party of swells.
1869. Trollope, He knew, etc. xxxiii. He sat smoking on the knife-board of the omnibus.
1894. Sala, London up to Date, 135. There was added to the top of the ’bus two long rows of seats parallel with the sides of the ’bus, and which very soon acquired the popular designation of the ‘knife-board.’
