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.
A baby boy whose skeleton was found beneath floorboards could have died up to 300 years ago, an inquest has heard, adding more mystery to what happened to him.
From BBC • Apr. 14, 2026
“Under the floorboards of Western culture run two streams, continuously,” he says.
From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 3, 2026
Chirlane McCray, the wife of former mayor Bill De Blasio, told reporters that doors occasionally opened and closed by themselves, and the floorboards creaked eerily.
From BBC • Dec. 8, 2025
For 40 years, Japan’s money held up the floorboards of American prosperity.
From MarketWatch • Nov. 20, 2025
He was eight centimeters taller than me, but he could move so silently sometimes, like he wasn’t walking on the same cheap, groaning floorboards as the rest of us.
From "The City Beautiful" by Aden Polydoros
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.
