Chinese boxes

American  

plural noun

1. a matched set of boxes, usually elaborately decorated and decreasing in size so that each fits inside the next larger one.

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Etymology

Origin of Chinese boxes

First recorded in 1825–30

Example Sentences

Chinese bureaucracy is like a series of Chinese boxes that are harder and harder to open as you move toward the center.

From New York Times • Mar. 31, 2017

Roth’s most challenging novels understand identity as a series of nested Chinese boxes.

From Los Angeles Times • Aug. 14, 2016

But in “Tales of the Marvellous and News of the Strange,” one doesn’t find stories nested inside other stories like Chinese boxes, as one does in those told by Shahrazad.

From Washington Post • Apr. 1, 2015

Based on the complicated tale by ETA Hoffmann, its plot accommodates a multiplicity of stories and fantasies, which nestle inside each other like Chinese boxes but don't quite connect.

From The Guardian • Dec. 12, 2010

To say that thinking is by metaphor is merely the same thing as to say that the world is an infinite series of analogies enclosed one within another in a succession of Chinese boxes.

From Impressions and Comments by Ellis, Havelock