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

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

“I thought of it as making these little Chinese boxes, with intricate inlay,” he said.

From New York Times • Jan. 4, 2012

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

In their nicely contrived involution they strikingly resemble those curious nests of Chinese boxes, where entire shells lie closely packed one within another,—a very marvel of ingenious and perfectly unnecessary construction.

From The Soul of the Far East by Lowell, Percival