boarder

American  

[bawr-der, bohr-] / ˈbɔr dər, ˈboʊr- /

noun

• boarders
  plural

1. a person, especially a lodger, who is supplied with regular meals.

2. a member of a boarding party.

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boarder British  

/ ˈbɔːdə /

noun

1. a pupil who lives at school during term time

2. a child who lives away from its parents and is cared for by a person or organization receiving payment

3. another word for lodger

4. a person who boards a ship, esp one who forces his way aboard in an attack

   stand by to repel boarders

5. informal a person who takes part in sailboarding or snowboarding

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• boarders
  plural

Etymology

Origin of boarder

First recorded in 1520–30; board + -er ¹

Explanation

A boarder is someone who rents a room in someone's house. It can also be a student who lives and studies away from home at a boarding school. There are two main meanings of boarder, but they both involve staying somewhere away from home. A boarding school is a private school where students live as well as study. Those students are called boarders. Also, if someone rents a room of their house to guests, the guests are boarders. Holden Caulfield, the main character of "Catcher in the Rye," was a boarder; that is, until he got thrown out of Pencey Prep.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

boarder boarders

He was a boogie boarder until the object of his adoration told him, “What are you riding that for? You should be surfing. Get a surfboard.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 14, 2026

George will now become a boarder, at one of the Eton's 25 boarding houses.

From BBC ● Jul. 22, 2026

After learning the basics of tap dancing from a boarder in the house where he was living, he caught the eye of more experienced tappers.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 20, 2026

“I was so traumatized,” Morrow, a school bus driver and dog boarder, said in an interview.

From Salon ● Apr. 15, 2026

Inside, the house is dark and muffled, silent but for the tick of the grandfather clock in the parlor, the cough of a boarder on the second floor.

From "The Brightwood Code" by Monica Hesse

Financial lessons from the nation’s history: embrace risks, don’t be afraid of debt, take in boarders if things get tight.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 3, 2026

Taking in boarders or starting a business, he says, are better strategies than buying a stock and hoping it will grow.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 1, 2026

While crews worked diligently to rake the fake snow over exposed rocks and patches of bare dirt on Friday, skiers and boarders scraped by like traffic on the 405 Freeway.

From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 22, 2025

Once, they might have been rented out to boarders, but that model has unfortunately fallen out of fashion in spite of platforms like Airbnb, perhaps because the owners often don’t need the money.

From Slate ● Nov. 27, 2024

Already, she’s moved in with Manolo at Dofta Isabel’s, and I am left alone at Dofta Chelito’s with new boarders I hardly know.

From "In the Time of the Butterflies" by Julia Alvarez