billboard
1 Americannoun
verb (used with object)
noun
noun
noun
Etymology
Origin of billboard1
An Americanism dating back to 1850–55; bill 1 + board
Origin of billboard2
Explanation
A billboard is a giant roadside sign. You might pass several billboards on the highway advertising a car dealership, a restaurant, or anything else someone paid to have on a billboard big enough to be seen by passing cars. When a company decides how to advertise, it may buy Internet ads, TV commercials, newspaper spreads, or billboard advertisements. A billboard is a good way for a business to catch people's attention, because it’s so big and a commuter may drive or walk past it five times a week. The word billboard first appeared in American English in the 1840s, meaning the board or wall where posters or handbills could be pasted. Billboard is also the name of a music magazine.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
He was at the heart of an Adidas campaign with Timothée Chalamet and featured on a giant 400-foot billboard for Powerade that looms over the Atlanta Stadium.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 14, 2026
She sprays “XO Kylie” across the billboard, gets back in her car, and leaves.
From Salon ● Jul. 2, 2026
She added just before Morgan took over, Maddy became a poster girl for the club, as the Blades erected a "massive" billboard of her, which "she loved".
From BBC ● Jul. 2, 2026
Spencer Pratt made animal welfare a key platform in his unsuccessful campaign for mayor, taking out billboard space around town showing himself surrounded by dogs and railing against animal abuse in social media posts.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 14, 2026
An old billboard for Bubba’s Gas n’ Grub indicated they were still forty miles from the first Topeka exit.
From "The Mark of Athena" by Rick Riordan
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
