Also splash board. [f. prec.]
1. A guard or screen in front of the driver’s seat on a vehicle, serving to protect him, or others sitting beside him, from being splashed with mud from the horse’s hoofs. Also in fig. context.
1842. Dickens, Amer. Notes (1850), 91/2. He takes a rein in each hand;… and dances on the splashboard with both feet.
1860. Thackeray, Round. Papers, Late Gt. Vict. I was his conscience, and stood on the splash-board of his triumph-car.
1861. G. M. Musgrave, By-roads & Battle-Fl., 75. Our fast mare … had nearly pitched me on to the splashboard.
1894. Baring-Gould, Kitty Alone, II. 102. Pepperill fastened it to the splashboard, and drove on.
2. A board fixed over or beside a wheel to intercept splashings.
1850. Holtzapffel, Turning, III. 1297. A splash-board is fixed behind the wheel, to catch the water thrown of, by centrifugal force.
1902. Brit. Med. Jrnl., 31 May, 1341/2. It is further recommended that for the wet spinning rooms … modified splashboards should be obligatory.
3. Naut. A screen above the deck-line.
1907. C. D. Stewart, Partners of Providence, vi. 80. The splash-board stood up in front of the wheel like a back-yard fence.
1912. J. Masefield, Dauber, v. A sea Washed them both in, over the splashboard.
