chocolate-box

American  

[chaw-kuh-lit-boks, chok-uh-, chawk-lit-, chok-] / ˈtʃɔ kə lɪtˌbɒks, ˈtʃɒk ə-, ˈtʃɔk lɪt-, ˈtʃɒk- /

adjective

1. excessively decorative and sentimental, as the pictures or designs on some boxes of chocolate candy; prettified.

   decorous, chocolate-box paintings of Victorian garden parties.

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chocolate-box British  

noun

1. informal (modifier) sentimentally pretty or appealing

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Etymology

Origin of chocolate-box

First recorded in 1890–95

Example Sentences

The next morning, I head back to the cathedral through Petite France, perhaps the most chocolate-box part of this wonderfully preserved city.

From Washington Post • Jan. 25, 2018

On a street of chocolate-box Georgian houses in Bloomsbury, the Charles Dickens Museum will reopen in time for the author’s 200th birthday.

From New York Times • Jan. 6, 2012

Kirstie and Phil were helping a couple find a period rural property with "chocolate-box charm" for £450,000, along with "a tasty investment flat in London" for £250,000.

From The Guardian • Mar. 11, 2011

The 1,436-sq-km national park is less touristy than the Yorkshire Dales, and contains chocolate-box villages and dramatic coastline as well as great stretches of moorland inhabited only by sheep.

From Time • Jun. 17, 2010

My romance was not in the things of glitter and chocolate-box gaiety, but rather in the dolours and silences of the East.

From Nights in London by Burke, Thomas