pencil box

American  

noun

pencil boxes plural

1. a shallow covered box, usually of pasteboard, for holding pencils and crayons: used by children as an item of school equipment.

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• pencil boxes
  plural

Etymology

Origin of pencil box

First recorded in 1905–10

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

pencil box

“If you come into a little bit of wealth, meaning if you got a new skirt or a new school outfit or a pencil box, automatically it was like, ‘Where did you get that from?’

From Washington Times ● Sep. 4, 2022

In what counts for a lull, Mr. Grams reached toward a pencil box and set to work, carefully charting the conditions of the nation’s midsection.

From New York Times ● Apr. 21, 2019

Brooks was a broken record while they waited: “Pencil box screen door pencil box screen door.”

From The New Yorker ● Jun. 2, 2014

Of course, you cannot easily justify placing an antique pencil box on your coat-and-bag-attracting chair; design can’t save us in all cases.

From Slate ● Apr. 24, 2014

A packet of cigarette sweets, a tin Phantom pencil box and Paul Bunyan—a Junior Classics Illustrated comic.

From "The God of Small Things" by Arundhati Roy