jukebox
[jook-boks]
- a coin-operated phonograph, typically in a gaudy, illuminated cabinet, having a variety of records that can be selected by push button.
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Origin of jukebox
Also called juke.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for jukebox
Contemporary Examples
The jukebox plays a medley of sixties tunes, an apt and agreeable feature.
He made suggestions to the manager of the drive-in burger restaurant about what should be on the jukebox.
Think of the way a song seems to jump out of a car radio or a jukebox, and then add the high fidelity of a good sound system.
Classic Miles Davis Recordings Reveal New Beauty in Their Classic Mono FormatMalcolm Jones
December 8, 2013
The jukebox blasts “Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In” by the 5th Dimension.
It is best heard wafting from a jukebox or over a glass of whiskey.
Historical Examples
Thoughtfully sipping my beer I heard him dial and report a jukebox out of order.
Cue for QuietThomas L. Sherred
While Harry was drawing the beer I walked string straight to the jukebox, clicked in a quarter, and stalked back to the barstool.
Cue for QuietThomas L. Sherred
I told her the jukebox and the television set were out of commission and there'd be no noise she didn't make herself.
Cue for QuietThomas L. Sherred
At Art's that night I listened with envy to the words that were used over the telephone when the jukebox gave up its ghost.
Cue for QuietThomas L. Sherred
He pushed in through the outer and inner doors, and he heard the burst of music from the jukebox.
The Man Who Hated MarsGordon Randall Garrett
jukebox
- a coin-operated machine, usually found in pubs, clubs, etc, that contains records, CDs, or videos, which are played when selected by a customer
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Word Origin
C20: from Gullah juke bawdy (as in juke house brothel) + box 1
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
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Word Origin and History for jukebox
n.
1937, jook organ, from jook joint "roadhouse" (1935), Black English slang, from juke, joog "wicked, disorderly," in Gullah (the creolized English of the coastlands of South Carolina, Georgia, and northern Florida), probably from Wolof and Bambara dzug "unsavory." Said to have originated in central Florida (see "A Note on Juke," Florida Review, vol. VII, no. 3, spring 1938). The spelling with a -u- might represent a deliberate attempt to put distance between the word and its origins.
For a long time the commercial juke trade resisted the name juke box and even tried to raise a big publicity fund to wage a national campaign against it, but "juke box" turned out to be the biggest advertising term that could ever have been invented for the commercial phonograph and spread to the ends of the world during the war as American soldiers went abroad but remembered the juke boxes back home. ["Billboard," Sept. 15, 1945]
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper