plotting board

noun

1. Navigation.,  a transparent table on a ship, used as a plotting sheet.

2. Military.,  a device based on a map or other scale representation of a region against which artillery fire is to be directed, for use in directing artillery fire against a fixed or moving target.

Word History and Origins

Origin of plotting board¹

First recorded in 1900–05

Example Sentences

Bill’s position was to handle the early-warning plotting board.

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Sir: I hardly expected to see the Russian bear on NORAD's plotting board�but there it is.

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He had his mortar tube�but no base plate, no plotting board, no aiming stakes, no forward observer.

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The duty controller, an Air Force captain, was quickly called; he made a fast check of the targets that had now been put on the plotting board and called to a jet fighter-interceptor base for a scramble.

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These reports, usually passed on to the Air Force through the Air Defense Command's Ground Observer Corps, merely went on the UFO plotting board as a statistic.

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