ˈmillboard
[Altered from milled board: see milled ppl. a. 4.]
A kind of stout pasteboard, made of a pulp of old rope, sacking, paper, and other coarse matter and ‘milled’ or rolled with high pressure. Also, a ‘board’ or piece of this material. millboard cutter (see quot. 1884).
| 1712 Lond. Gaz. No. 5014/5 Duties upon.. Pastboard, Millboard, Scaleboard. 1812 J. Smyth Pract. of Customs (1821) 155 Mill Boards are the thickest sort of Pasteboard, used by Book-binders for the covering of Books. 1884 Knight Dict. Mech. Suppl., Mill Board Cutter, a machine for cutting to size mill and card boards for binding, etc. |
b. A specially prepared ‘board’ for sketching.
| 1854 Thackeray Newcomes I. xxvii. 258 Those smooth mill-boards, those slab-tinted sketching blocks [etc.]. 1859 Gullick & Timbs Paint. 217 Milboards are..well adapted for sketching in oil colours from nature. |