different between larboard vs lapboard

English

Etymology

From Middle English laddebord, referring to the side of the ship on which cargo was loaded. Changed to larboard in the 16th century by association with starboard.

Noun

larboard (usually uncountable, plural larboards)

1. (archaic, nautical) The left side of a ship, looking from the stern forward to the bow; port side.
   • 1674, John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book 2,^[1]

     […] harder beset

     And more endangered than when Argo passed

     Through Bosporus betwixt the justling rocks,

     Or when Ulysses on the larboard shunned

     Charybdis, and by th’ other whirlpool steered.

   • 1841, Edgar Allan Poe, “A Descent into the Maelström”^[2]

     The boat made a sharp half-turn to larboard, and then shot off in its new direction like a thunderbolt.

   • 1898, H. G. Wells, The War of the Worlds, Book One, Chapter 17,^[3]

     Suddenly the foremost Martian lowered his tube and discharged a canister of the black gas at the ironclad. It hit her larboard side and glanced off in an inky jet that rolled away to seaward, an unfolding torrent of Black Smoke, from which the ironclad drove clear.

Usage notes

In the Royal Navy it was not until 1844 that larboard was abandoned for port in reference to that side of the ship. The term port however had always been used when referring to the helm (ie. sailing direction), in order to avoid any confusion between starboard and larboard in such an important matter. (Reference: Ray Parkin, H. M. Bark Endeavour, Miegunyah Press, second edition 2003, ?ISBN, page 56.)

In chapter 12 of Life on the Mississippi (1883) Mark Twain writes larboard was used to refer to the left side of the ship (Mississippi River steamboat) in his days on the river -- circa 1857-1861.

Synonyms

• backboard
• port
• left

Antonyms

• starboard

Translations

Anagrams

• Labrador, labrador

English

Etymology

lap +? board

Noun

lapboard (plural lapboards)

1. A board held on the lap as a simple lap desk.