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

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

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

Our next stop was Culver City, where he gave me a music box that played “Edelweiss.”

From Los Angeles Times • Oct. 18, 2024

This plain brown music box is therefore central to the ambivalence that lately surrounds Puccini, “Madama Butterfly” and “Turandot,” and the amorphous label of appropriation that has been applied to both.

From New York Times • Apr. 2, 2024

“Lots of clothes, a music box like yours, a bike—” “You already have a bike.”

From "Three Little Words: A Memoir" by Ashley Rhodes-Courter