starboard

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.^[1]

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈstɑː.bəd/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• (General American, Canada) IPA^(key): /ˈstɑɹ.bɚd/
• (General Australian) IPA^(key): /ˈstaː.bəd/

starboard (countable and uncountable, plural starboards)

1. The 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.

   Synonym: right

   Antonyms: port, backboard, larboard, leeboard, left

   I see another vessel off the starboard side.

   We're on starboard tack, so the other boat has to give way.

   • (Can we date this quote?), “RS Quest Rigging Instructions”, in California State University, Sacramento‎^[1], page 3:

     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.

2. (nautical) One of the two traditional watches aboard a ship standing a watch in two.

starboard (third-person singular simple present starboards, present participle starboarding, simple past and past participle starboarded)

1. (nautical, transitive) To put to the right, or starboard, side of a vessel.

   to starboard the helm

• starboard on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

From star +‎ board. The earliest known use was in 2013 on Meta Stack Exchange.

starboard (plural starboards)

1. (social media) A list where messages starred in a community space appear.
   • 2013 June 24, Lightness Races in Orbit, “Room owners should not be throttled in the Chat systems”, in Meta Stack Exchange‎^[2], archived from the original on 1 October 2015, Questions:

     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.

   • 2014 April 7, michaelb958--GoFundMonica, “Starred fixed-width messages break in the starboard”, in Meta Stack Exchange‎^[3], archived from the original on 7 August 2014, 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.

   • 2025 January 19, celiinna, “discord bots for servers?”, in Reddit‎^[4], retrieved 5 April 2024, r/discordapp:

     i also use carlbot for warnings, bans, mutes—and my starboard!!

2. (social media, by extension) A system that enables such a list.
   • 2017 September 21, DimMagician, “I made a Starboard site!”, in Reddit‎^[5], archived from the original on 7 June 2023, 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.

   • 2023 July 16, MadHuarache, “About the pin limit...”, in Reddit‎^[6], r/discordapp:

     We used to do that until someone suggested adding a bot that had a starboard.

   • 2024 August 3, GroovySpookyDeadite, “Does anyone know how to make a channel just for pinned messages?”, in Reddit‎^[7], r/discordapp:

     You could use a form of starboard to put messages into a read only channel, but then anyone with react permissions could theoretically add to it

• artboards