means The sport or activity of riding and performing tricks on a board mounted on wheels.

from A straightforward compound of "skate" and "board." "Skate" arrived in English in the 17th century from Dutch "schaats" (itself borrowed from an Old French word for stilts or a long leg-bone, since early skates were carved from bone). "Board" is the plain old Germanic word for a flat plank. The activity grew out of mid-20th-century surfing culture in California — landlocked surfers nailing roller-skate wheels to planks to "surf" the pavement — which is why the earliest name for it was "sidewalk surfing" before "skateboard" rolled in to stay.