music box

American  

noun

• music boxes
  plural

1. a box or case containing an apparatus for producing music mechanically, as by means of a comblike steel plate with tuned teeth sounded by small pegs or pins in the surface of a revolving cylinder or disk.

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music box British  

noun

1. a mechanical instrument that plays tunes by means of pins on a revolving cylinder striking the tuned teeth of a comblike metal plate, contained in a box

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• music boxes
  plural

Etymology

Origin of music box

First recorded in 1765–75

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

music box

Aficionados will delight in minor details such as being close enough to touch the ghoulish monkey music box from the original, and being within breathing distance of the performers in these famous roles.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 9, 2025

Her ballerina background, however, is fairly extraneous, even with De Armas made to stare solemnly at that blasted music box during her rare moments of rest.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 5, 2025

René opens the music box, and a tinkling music begins to play, the same song heard long ago in his Damascus sitting room.

From BBC ● Dec. 23, 2024

There, in the Morris Museum’s collection of mechanical musical instruments and automata, is a music box from around 1877.

From New York Times ● Apr. 2, 2024

In friskier moods, she performed lazy pirouettes, as though to the accompaniment of my own music box, which I always brought to the roof to keep me company.

From "Middlesex: A Novel" by Jeffrey Eugenides