Growing up, my parents always said “rollerboard” in reference to wheeled suitcase, and I followed suit. “‘Roll aboard’ was the original term,” linguist and lexicographer Ben Zimmer told HuffPost. Luggage Roll-Aboard Group,” available at M. Epstein’s department store in Morristown. References to nonspecific “roll-aboard” luggage cropped up in 1994, and from 1993 onward, there were adsfor“rollerboard”suitcasesas well. Even more recently, Jonathan Franzen used the word “rollerboard” in his 2018 book of essays “The End of the End of the Earth” ― much to the dismay of pilot and blogger Patrick Smith.

Source: Huffington Post January 24, 2026 12:27 UTC