Skateboard

Part of speech: noun, verb

Definitions

1. A narrow platform with wheels designed for gliding and performing tricks on various surfaces
2. An apparatus featuring a flat deck mounted on small wheels, intended for recreational riding and stunts
3. A flat board equipped with wheels that allows a person to roll and perform maneuvers on smooth surfaces

Etymology: The skateboard is a compound of two older English words, "skate" and "board," and its first meaning was a board you could stand on and ride with your feet. The earlier sense of "skate" is the one most people know from ice blades, and it came into English from Dutch "schaatse," a word for a pattern-wheeled wooden or metal runner strapped to the foot. Skating on wheels and on ice were both imagined as gliding on a platform, which is why the two words joined so easily. The noun first described that foot-powered board in the mid-20th century. Only later, in the late 20th or early 21st century, did the word come to name the chassis of a vehicle that resembled such a board, so the compound's meaning stretched from a plaything to a piece of machinery.

Synonyms: board, skate