to go by the board
Preserved but no longer current.
Meaning · English
To go for good and all, to be quite finished with, thrown overboard. Here board means the side of the ship.
Era: ca. 1898 (Victorian)
Sources & notes
Reproduced from Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898 edition, public domain; archive.org, retrieved 2026-07-31; OCR text, minor errors possible). Reflects the scholarship and attitudes of its era.
Common questions
What does “to go by the board” mean?
To go for good and all, to be quite finished with, thrown overboard. Here board means the side of the ship.
Is “to go by the board” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.