Traveled from Germanic planks to French edges to English as the line between territories — an etymological cousin of 'board.'
A line separating two countries, administrative divisions, or other areas; the edge or boundary of something; a decorative strip around the edge of something.
English 'border' comes from Old French 'bordure' (edge, border, boundary), itself derived from Frankish *bord meaning 'side of a ship, edge, plank.' The Frankish word descends from Proto-Germanic *burdą ('board, plank, table'), which is also the source of English 'board.' The original Germanic sense was a physical edge — the side of a ship or a wooden plank — and the abstract sense of a territorial boundary developed in French before