the.com/sideboard
The furniture that hides your secrets at dinner-table height and your booze at every party.
means A long, low piece of dining-room furniture with drawers and cupboards, used for storing tableware, linens, and serving food and drink.
from Exactly what it sounds like, stitched together in Middle English from 'side' and 'board' — and 'board' here is the old word for a table (the same 'board' in 'room and board' and 'above board'). So a sideboard was literally the board set at the side of the dining hall, where dishes waited their turn. The word has stood by the table for centuries, even as the furniture grew its drawers, cupboards, and reputation for concealment.
- origin
- Named for serving from the side, not seating
- victorian flex
- Bigger sideboards signaled household wealth to guests
- chess too
- In Scrabble, sideboard means held-back tiles
- sailing term
- A board fitted to a vessel's side
magic the gathering sideboard — 15-card deck subset in competitive tcg tournaments since 1994
chess sideboard variant — experimental format allowing piece substitutions, used in some chess960 competitions