sideboard

Etymology

It is formed from English side + board,^[2][3][4][5] and was side-bord in Middle English.^[6][7] The OED takes side here as a noun and Etymonline as an adjective.^[2][4] The American Heritage Dictionary takes the sense "side whiskers" as probably an alteration of sideburns,^[8] and the OED compares that word, recorded slightly earlier.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

A dining table at the side of a room or to the side of the high table, for people of lower status: before 1383, in a Hostillar's Roll from Durham.^[2][6] Etymonline gives about 1300,^[4] and Dictionary.com 1350–1400.^[9] Merriam-Webster Unabridged has only the later furniture sense, from 1671.^[7]

Semantic evolution

The word began as a secondary dining table in a medieval hall, with lower-ranking guests: in Gawain many a trusty man is served "at þe sidbordez",^[6] and a document of 1451 distinguishes the best board for the high dais from the side boards in the hall.^[6] The Promptorium Parvulorum of 1440 glosses it with Latin assidella.^[6] From about 1663 it was also a side table holding food and drink ready for serving,^[2] and Etymonline dates the furniture sense to the 1670s.^[4] Johnson (1755) described it as the table holding things needed by those eating at the other table.^[5] Merriam-Webster Unabridged traces the object through a heavy open cupboard of the 16th and 17th centuries, a serving table with drawers and cupboards developed by Georgian designers, and a 19th-century combination of serving table and dresser, often with a mirror.^[7] From 1724 to 1903 it could also mean the silver tableware displayed there.^[2] Separately, a literal "side board" of a structure is recorded from 1463–4,^[2] a removable board raising the side of a cart or wagon from 1814,^[2] and a stand-up shirt collar in slang from 1857.^[2][3] Side whiskers were called sideboards from 1883, first in the United States, but the OED now calls the use chiefly British.^[2][8]

Timeline

• before 1383 – a dining table at the side of a room or high table.^[2][6]
• 1463–4 – a board forming part of the side of a structure.^[2]
• c. 1663 – a side table holding food and drink to be served, later a piece of dining-room furniture.^[2]
• 1724 – a set of silver tableware displayed on a sideboard (obsolete after 1903).^[2]
• 1814 – a removable board added to the side of a cart or wagon.^[2]
• 1857 – in slang, a stand-up shirt collar.^[2][3]
• 1883 – in the plural, side whiskers.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A long piece of dining-room furniture with drawers and cupboards, for storing tableware and linen and for serving food: She set the decanters on the oak sideboard.^{[10][8][3][2]}
2. A board forming a side or part of a side of a structure.^[8][7][2]
3. One of the removable boards added to the side of a truck or wagon to raise its load.^[2][3]
4. In the plural, chiefly in British use, sideburns.^[8][2][3]
5. (obsolete, 1383–1740) A dining table at the side of a hall or apart from the high table.^[2][6][7]
6. (obsolete, 1857–1875) In the plural, in slang, a stand-up shirt collar.^[2][3]

Related words

• side
• board
• sideburn

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
6. ^ a b c d e f g Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
7. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
8. ^ a b c d e The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
9. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
10. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins