hoverboard, n.
Origin: Formed within English, by compounding. Etymons: hover- comb. form, board n., skateboard n.
Etymology: < hover- comb. form + board n., after skateboard n.
Probably originating in, and popularized by, the 1989 film Back to the Future II.
orig. and chiefly Science Fiction.
A board, resembling a skateboard without wheels, which hovers above the ground and may be ridden like a skateboard.In Back to the Future II (see note in etymology) and other science-fiction contexts, hoverboards generally work using hypothetical antigravity technology. Various types of ‘hoverboard’ have actually been constructed, using existing technologies such as cushions of air (cf. hovercraft n.) or magnetism, but these have greater limitations than the devices depicted in science fiction.
1988 B. Gale Back to Future II
(film script, revised draft)
18
Hey, kid, I need your..hoverboard?
1993 St. Louis
(Missouri)
Post-Dispatch
(Nexis)
1 Nov.
In the school gym, each space traveler got to scoot around on a hoverboard made by students at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville to ride on a cushion of air.
2002 Electronic Gaming Monthly Mar. 135/1
If..I could invent any means of transportation..an anti-gravity hoverboard would be near the top of my list.
2014 Herald-Times
(Bloomington, Indiana)
13 Nov. e1/1
Skateboarding is going airborne this fall with the launch of the first real commercially marketed hoverboard which uses magnetics to float about an inch off the ground.
1988—2014(Hide quotations)