A person who does the sport of wakeboarding — standing on a short, wide board with both feet strapped in, holding a rope, and being pulled along fast behind a motorboat. The boat leaves a trail of white churned-up water behind it (that trail is called the wake), and the rider uses it like a small ramp to jump and turn in the air. Note that the line above describes the board, but this word is the *person*, not the board — the board is a wakeboard. If you see -er on the end of a sport word in English, it is almost always the human: a surfer surfs, a skater skates, a wakeboarder wakeboards. You will mostly meet this word in sports news, in videos, or on signs at a lake or a reservoir. It is a normal everyday word, not formal at all, but it is not common in daily conversation either, simply because not many people do this sport. There is no real difference between a beginner and a professional here — anyone standing on that board is a wakeboarder.