noun
Usage
What does floorboard mean? A floorboard is one of the usually wooden planks that make up a floor. It usually refers to a board of plywood used to make a subfloor—the rough floor beneath a finished floor. Many houses are constructed using floorboards to create a subfloor, which is then often covered with materials like hardwood, carpet, tile, linoleum, or some form of laminate flooring. The word floorboard means something else in the context of vehicles—it refers to the floor of a car or truck. This sense of the word is the basis of the slang verb floorboard, meaning to press a vehicle’s accelerator (gas pedal) as far down as possible (all the way to the floor) in order to go as fast as possible. The word floor is more commonly used to mean the same thing. Both terms are often followed by it, as in As soon as the light turned green, I floorboarded it so I could get way ahead of all the other cars. Example: I pried up a loose floorboard hoping to find treasure under, but there was just a lot of dust and dirt.
Etymology
Origin of floorboard
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.
They are also looking for a place where they can safely smash the accelerator pedal into the floorboard.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 8, 2026
The 10-year-old stood outside the only home he’d ever known — a home he could traverse in total darkness, whose every floorboard and door jamb he knew like the back of his hand.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 28, 2025
The feet dance in the cramped space above the floorboard, stabbing between clutch, gas and brake.
From Washington Times ● Dec. 14, 2023
Rod Bernstein was rifling through the attic of his house in D.C.’s Kalorama neighborhood when, from under a floorboard, he pulled out a note.
From Washington Post ● Mar. 10, 2023
An old tin petty cash box was hidden under a removable floorboard beneath her bed.
From "Atonement" by Ian McEwan
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.
