Larboard

Objects seen beyond the left side of a vessel were often described as being 'to larboard'.

The origins of the name are unclear, but the Oxford English Dictionary suggests that '[the] word seems to have meant from 'the side at the back of the steersman'; the rudder or steering-paddle of early Germanic ships having been worked over the right side, whence the name stéorbord 'steering-side', starboard.' .

Ordinarily a ship's company was usually divided into two watches, one of which was called the larboard watch, the other the starboard watch.