Greek and Roman Antiquity. a box of a usually cylindrical shape having a lid with a knob in the center, used for toilet articles.
pyx.
Botany. a pyxidium.
1350–1400; Middle English < Latin < Greek pyxís a box
1680–90; < Latin < Greek pyxís a box, pyx
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The marriage is celebrated here in a pyxis attributed to the Meleager Painter.
From New York Times • Oct. 21, 2010
Pythagoras, 57, 208. pyxidula, 4, 181. pyxis, 3, 115, 147, 165, 172.
From On the magnet, magnetick bodies also, and on the great magnet the earth a new physiology, demonstrated by many arguments & experiments by Gilbert, William
All except the pyxis are decorated with painted figures, and contain flowers.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 5, Slice 6 "Celtes, Konrad" to "Ceramics" by Various
Pyxidata means made like a box, from pyxis, a box.
From The Mushroom, Edible and Otherwise Its Habitat and its Time of Growth by Hard, Miron Elisha
On the Dodwell pyxis of 650 to 620 B.C., a man wears an oval shield, covering him from the base of the neck to the ankles.
From Homer and His Age by Lang, Andrew
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
