dobber

Pronounced: DOB-uhr, noun

Notes: A new word for me, as far as I can remember

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Yesterday’s word

The word duckboard is “a boardwalk or slatted flooring laid on a wet, muddy, or cold surface” (usually used in the plural form)

First usage

Our word came into English in the 1910s

Background / Comments

Our word comes from World War I to describe the boards or slats of wood laid down to provide safe footing for soldiers walking across wet or muddy ground in trenches or camps. This idea didn’t always work as desired; some soldiers walking on wet duckboards would slide off them much like water slides off a duck’s back; thus, duckboard. I myself have laid duckboards, but I didn’t know that is what they were called. There was a muddy area over which people needed to walk, so we got boards and put them down.