board game

American  

Rarely boardgame

noun

1. a game, as checkers or chess, requiring the moving of pieces from one section of a board to another.

2. any game played on a board.

---

Etymology

Origin of board game

First recorded in 1930–35

Example Sentences

From board game clubs to junk journaling meetups, there’s so many different ways to connect and maybe try something new.

From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 23, 2026

The line between TMI and TLI—too little information—can feel like playing the board game Operation: one tiny flinch in either direction and the buzzer goes off.

From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 20, 2026

The teenagers huddled around the table leap into action, shouting instructions and acting out the correct strategies for just one of the potential catastrophes laid out in the board game called Master of Disaster.

From Barron's • Dec. 29, 2025

But thanks to geography teachers as well as the board game Trivial Pursuit, people on all corners of the globe know what to ask when someone says he’s from Kansas City.

From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 28, 2025

But combining those things with a hunt was like living a real-life board game, with a book as the prize.

From "Book Scavenger" by Jennifer Chambliss Bertman