Dictionary

fireboard en · NOUN

Etymology

From fire + board.

Meanings

1. A board or screen placed over a fireplace when it is not in use.
   • I then glanced round the room; and besides the bedstead and centre table, could see no other furniture belonging to the place, but a rude shelf, the four walls, and a papered fireboard representing a man striking a whale. 1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “chapter 3”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC:
   • 1915, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Emancipation A stovepipe had been fitted into an iron fireboard covering the great fireplace
   • The wind whopped and spat into the chimney; and now and then a puff of wood-smoke blew out and mounted up along the blackened fireboard. 1918, Melville Davisson Post, “chapter 2”, in Uncle Abner:
2. (Appalachia) A fireplace's mantel.
3. A piece of wood into which a fire drill is spun to create friction.

Forms

Synonyms

chimney board · hearthboard