Box

How to spell box

3 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce box

What does box mean?

1. nounA rigid container with flat sides and usually a lid, used to hold or transport things.
2. verbTo fight an opponent with the fists, typically as a sport using padded gloves.
3. verbTo place or pack something into a container.

Box in a sentence

• noun

  She packed the books into a sturdy cardboard box.

• verb

  He learned to box at the local amateur club.

• verb

  The volunteers will box the donated clothes ready for shipping.

• noun

  The removal team carried every box up to the new flat.

• verb

  The two contenders will box for the title next month.

• verb

  They had to box the entire kitchen before the move.

Where does box come from?

Language of origin: Greek

The word comes from the Late Latin buxis, a variant of pyxis, which itself was borrowed from the Greek puxis, meaning a small case or container. The Greeks named these little cases after puxos, the boxwood tree, because the close-grained wood of that tree was the favoured material for carving small lidded containers. The word travelled into Old English as box, where it referred both to the evergreen shrub and to the container made from its timber, and the two senses have lived side by side ever since. The verb meaning 'to fight with the fists' is a separate and later development from around the 1500s, and its origin is genuinely uncertain, possibly linked to an older sense of 'a blow'. The spelling is mercifully phonetic, with the final 'x' carrying the /ks/ sound that English keeps for this short, ancient word.

How the word is built

• box (single root, from Late Latin buxis/Greek puxis: a container made of boxwood)