tailboard

tail +‎ board

tailboard (plural tailboards)

1. A hinged board or hatch at the rear of a vehicle that can be lowered for loading and unloading; a tailgate.
   • 1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, →OCLC, page 171:

     She got one knee up under him and hurled him off, and was over the tail-board in a flash, landing on her feet like a cat, and panting hard, by the sudden release of a violent emotion.

   • 1939, Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep:

     The man in the very new overalls was just heaving a box up on the tailboard.

• broadtail