It should come as no surprise that many of our automotive vocabulary words actually have their origins in the days of wagons and carriages…and one such word is dashboard.
What was a dashboard originally? Well, dating from 1846 (and originally hyphenated dash-board), this word was used to describe the literal board or leather apron at the front of a vehicle that was meant to prevent mud from “dashing” up over the wheels and onto the driver/occupants. Yep…a mudflap of sorts!
So how did it come to be “a panel at the front of a vehicle on which guages are mounted”? Mere proximity to the front seat, it seems. Our dashboards certainly have nothing to do with restraining mud, but the word was borrowed by the automotive industry as early as 1904!
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Roseanna M. White is a bestselling, Christy Award winning author who has long claimed that words are the air she breathes. Having successfully launched two homeschool grads, she now spends her time writing fiction, designing book covers, and pretending her house will clean itself. Roseanna is the author of a slew of historical novels that span several continents and thousands of years, as well as a fantasy series and contemporary mysteries and romances. Spies and war and mayhem always seem to find their way into her books…to offset her real life, which is blessedly ordinary. 
