plugboard

American

[pluhg-bawrd, -bohrd] / ˈplʌgˌbɔrd, -ˌboʊrd /

noun

Electricity. an electric switchboard with plugs for telephones and the like.
Also called control panel. Computers. a removable panel containing manually wired electrical terminals into which plugs or pins are inserted: formerly used to control operation of peripheral equipment, as a keyboard.

plugboard British

/ ˈplʌɡˌbɔːd /

noun

another name for patch board

"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

Etymology

Origin of plugboard

First recorded in 1885–90; plug + board

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.

See Examples For:

plugboard

Katie Hafner: So no plugboard, that made it a bit easier.

From Scientific American ● Oct. 12, 2023

Instead of a plugboard, it had four rotors with unusual rotation patterns.

From "The Woman All Spies Fear" by Amy Butler Greenfield

If you tinker with these, you might work out that the rotors and plugboard link up the letter keys and the indicators.

From "The Woman All Spies Fear" by Amy Butler Greenfield

In most models, there’s also a plugboard at one end.

From "The Woman All Spies Fear" by Amy Butler Greenfield

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023