fireboard

English

A fireboard over a fireplace

Alternative forms

fire-board, fire board

Etymology

fire +‎ board

Noun

fireboard (plural fireboards)

1. A board or screen placed over a fireplace when it is not in use.
   • 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:

     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.

   • 1915, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Emancipation

     A stovepipe had been fitted into an iron fireboard covering the great fireplace

   • 1918, Melville Davisson Post, “chapter 2”, in Uncle Abner:

     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.

   Synonyms: chimney board, hearthboard

2. (Appalachia) A fireplace's mantel.

References

• “fireboard”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.