Starboard Meaning

/ˈstɑː.bəd/
B2

Definition, CEFR level B2, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.

Listen pronunciation

nounThe righthand side of a ship, boat or aircraft when facing the front, or fore or bow. Used to unambiguously refer to directions according to the sides of the vessel, rather than those of a crew member or object.

nounOne of the two traditional watches aboard a ship standing a watch in two.

I always confuse which side is port and which starboard.
Look, there's a whale breaching off the starboard bow!
Synonyms:
Antonyms:
CEFR Practice Quiz
When looking toward the front of a ship, the ____ rail is on your right.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The captain looked out of the ____ window of the ship to see the lighthouse marking the harbor entrance.

From Middle English sterbord, stere-bourd, stere-burd, from Old English stēorbord, from Proto-West Germanic *steurubord, equivalent to steer + board (“side (of a ship)”), referring to ancient ships with the steering oar set to the right (to accommodate right-handed crew). Ships had to dock on their left (port) side because the steering oar on the right would get in the way, which is how the left became known as the port side.

"Now stow the mainsail as follows, preferably with the sail still lying in the starboard cockpit: beginning at the head, fold the upper section so that the upper two battens are aligned together; then tightly roll the sail from the head down to the foot. Reinsert the sail into its bag." — (Can we date this quote?), “RS Quest Rigging Instructions”, in California State University, Sacramento, page 3:
"The unlimited starring power is an arguably useful feature because it enables management of the starboard with notifications and the like, but I see nothing in the informal job description of a room owner that says they have any more right to spam the room than I do." — 2013 June 24, Lightness Races in Orbit, “Room owners should not be throttled in the Chat systems”, in Meta Stack Exchange, archived from the original on 01 Oct 2015, Questions:
"TFHRC#1 indicates a backquote in a chat message using fixed-width formatting, which is (correctly) output literally. FHRC#2 shows that the same backquote is misinterpreted by the sidebar starboard as a formatting character, wrecking the intended look and feel even more." — 2014 April 7, michaelb958--GoFundMonica, “Starred fixed-width messages break in the starboard”, in Meta Stack Exchange, archived from the original on 07 Aug 2014, Questions:
"i also use carlbot for warnings, bans, mutes—and my starboard!!" — 2025 January 19, celiinna, “discord bots for servers?”, in Reddit, retrieved 05 Apr 2024, r/discordapp:
"In case you don't know what a starboard is, it's basically a system used on Discord that whenever you react with a star emoji, the message is showcased inside of a #starboard channel." — 2017 September 21, DimMagician, “I made a Starboard site!”, in Reddit, archived from the original on 07 Jun 2023, r/discordapp:

Explore More B2 Vocabulary Words

CEFR Practice Quiz
When looking toward the front of a ship, the ____ rail is on your right.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The captain looked out of the ____ window of the ship to see the lighthouse marking the harbor entrance.

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