leeboard

[lee-bawrd, -bohrd]

noun Nautical.

either of two broad, flat objects attached to the sides of a sailing ship amidships, the one on the lee side being lowered into the water to prevent the ship from making leeway.

Nearby words

Origin of leeboard

1400–50; late Middle English: the lee side of a ship; see lee¹, board

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Examples from the Web for leeboard

The leeboard, like a centre board, is of course intended to keep the canoe from sliding off when trying to beat up into the wind.
Boy Scouts Handbook|Boy Scouts of America
In rough water a centreboard must strain a boat more than a leeboard does.
Yachting Vol. 1|Various.
The pleasure of sailing was thus denied to me for several years afterwards, and all through my ignorance of the leeboard.
Yachting Vol. 1|Various.
The leeboard is a necessary attachment to the sailing outfit.
Boy Scouts Handbook|Boy Scouts of America

With this arrangement the leeboard could be raised and lowered and also shifted to the lee side on each tack.
The Migrations of an American Boat Type|Howard I. Chapelle

British Dictionary definitions for leeboard

leeboard

noun

nautical one of a pair of large adjustable paddle-like boards that may be lowered along the lee side to reduce sideways drift or leeway

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012