Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(US) a dancer.

1940		Pittsburgh Courier (PA) 20 Jan. 7/1: Juanita Boisseau has re-enlisted in the Apollo board beaters.
1940		Pittsburgh Courier (PA) 17 Feb. 7/1: Betty Cobb, another board kicker, got out of line at the old Rose Club.

a street seller of various items, with the stock advertised on a board; thus board work, performing such a job.

1861		(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor I 215/1: Occasionally, however, the running patterer [...] transmigrates into a standing one, be-taking himself to ‘board work,’ as it is termed in street technology, and stopping at the corners of thoroughfares with a large pictorial placard raised upon a pole.
1884		Cassell’s Family Mag. Dec. 32: The announcements were borne by a gang of unhappy board-men.

see under stiff n.¹

1. a billiard table.

1771		P. Parsons New Newmarket II 24: That board of green cloth, the billiard table.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1850		F.E. Smedley Frank Fairlegh (1878) 35: Do you know what Lawless meant by the ‘board of green cloth’ this morning? [...] the billiard-table!
1870		Dublin Eve. Post 2 June 4/5: Billiard Match for the Championship. The third match [...] on the board of green cloth took place on Tuesday.
1870		Sportsman (London) 16 Apr. 4/1: The play [...] was pronounced the most marvellous that has ever been witnessed in this country on the board green cloth.
1882		Belfast Morn. News 16 Mar. 3/2: Thje Board of green Cloth. A double-handed billiard match between Oxford and Cambridge Universities was played last night.
1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 10: Board of Green Cloth, a billiard or bagatelle-table.

2. a card-table.

1826		C.M. Westmacott Eng. Spy II 360: Would you but take a few lessons from my old friend at the science of shuffle and cut, you would not rise so frequently from the board of the green cloth [...] with pockets in which the devil might dance a saraband.
1860		R. Nicholson Rogue’s Progress (1966) 54: His first toast [...] was either ‘The board of the green cloth,’ or ‘The children in the wood’.
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1866		Framlingham Wkly News 22 Dec. 4/6: The Board of Green Cloth [...] The gamblers at Foretdechene are terribly in earnest [...] as many sitting as can find room round the green-cloth covered board.
1886		M.E. Braddon Mohawks I 181: The soft seductive sound of the dice sliding gently on to the board of green cloth.

see separate entries.

eccentric, unstable.

1977

C. McFadden Serial 100: You’re all over the board.

referring to drink that has been consumed.

1810		‘Dick Dock’ in A Garland of New Songs (60) 5: Dick Dock a tar, at Greenwich moor’d, / One day had got his beer on board.
1917		‘Banjo’ Paterson ‘Concerning a Steeplechase Rider’ in Three Elephant Power 107: At last they cannot ride at all without a regular cargo of alcohol on board.

see above board adj.