Definition of "hoarding"

Making inquiries she came to a hoarding, within which were excavations denoting the foundations of a building; and on the boards without one or two large posters announcing that the foundation-stone of the chapel about to be erected would be laid that afternoon at three o’clock by a London preacher of great popularity among his body.

1894 December – 1895 November, Thomas Hardy, chapter VIII, in Jude the Obscure, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], published 1896

A hoarding is a legal requirement for the safety of the public on a building site. There are rules about its height and construction. But of course it is also the perfect opportunity: a blank canvas on which to show a vision of the life soon to be lived behind it.

2014 September 25, Hugo Macdonald, “Could those utopian hoardings for new developments get any more nauseating?”, in The Guardian‎

They’re a familiar sight to many: the eye-roll-inducing, over-the-top development hoardings and adverts that celebrate the (inevitably luxury and, to most people, unaffordable) developments soon to be added to the city skyline.

2015 October 2, Francesca Perry, “What are the most ridiculous property development adverts you've seen?”, in The Guardian‎

The west side is one massive building site, although it's hard to appreciate what's going on behind all the hoardings.

2022 November 16, Paul Bigland, “From rural branches to high-speed arteries”, in RAIL, number 970, page 57

Nobody has ever seen Big Brother. He is a face on the hoardings, a voice on the telescreen. We may be reasonably sure that he will never die, and there is already considerable uncertainty as to when he was born.

1949 June 8, George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], Nineteen Eighty-Four: A Novel, London: Secker & Warburg; republished [Australia]: Project Gutenberg of Australia, August 2001

But holidaymakers arriving this weekend in Positano, on the Amalfi coast, are more likely to find their gaze captured by a vast Volkswagen Golf. The car, pictured on a giant hoarding, has launched the latest row over intrusive advertising in Italy's historic towns and cities.

2004 June 25, John Hooper, “Uproar in Italy over hoardings in historic vistas”, in The Guardian‎

But that doesn’t solve harder questions about the hoarding of vaccines, raw materials and patent rights in the west, or the fact that Covax clearly isn’t working as fast as it should.

2021 April 26, Gaby Hinsliff, “Vaccine hoarding is all the more disturbing as a Covid disaster unfolds in India”, in The Guardian‎

Hoarding can be distressing and dangerous. But it’s not just a matter of ‘too much stuff’ – it’s a complex condition that requires careful, targeted help[.]

2023 July 4, Samira Shackle, “‘You reach a point where you can’t live your life’: what is behind extreme hoarding?”, in The Guardian‎