sandbox

American  

[sand-boks] / ˈsændˌbɒks /

noun

• sandboxes
  plural

1. a box or receptacle for holding sand, especially one large enough for children to play in.

2. Computers. an environment in which software developers or editors can create and test new content, separate from other content in the project (often used attributively).

   sandbox web design;

   New features are tested and critiqued in the demo sandbox.

---

adjective

1. Digital Technology. noting or relating to a genre of video game with a nonlinear structure that allows players to roam freely.

sandbox British  

/ ˈsændˌbɒks /

noun

1. a container on a railway locomotive from which sand is released onto the rails to assist the traction

2. a box with sand shaped for moulding metal

3. a container of sand for small children to play in

4. computing a protected environment in which an untrusted program may be run without affecting other parts of the system

---

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• sandboxes
  plural

Etymology

Origin of sandbox

First recorded in 1565–75; sand + box ¹

Explanation

Many playgrounds have a sandbox, an area that's full of fine, soft sand for kids to play in. For many children, all they need is a sandbox, a shovel, and a pail to be perfectly happy. In North America, this common plaything is called a sandbox, while in the U.K. you'll hear it called a sandpit. It's not unusual for people with yards and young children to have a sandbox at home, and they're also found on school playgrounds and in public parks. Kids in sandboxes will dig holes, fill toy trucks with sand, mix the sand with water, and (occasionally) throw sand at each other.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

sandbox sandboxes

Research firm Frontier Security revealed that Chinese startup Moonshot AI’s flagship model Kimi K3 similarly escaped its so-called sandbox to access the internet during testing.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 7, 2026

In the OpenAI-Hugging Face incident, the AI attacked the sandbox itself, finding a vulnerability which let it access the internet and "go rogue".

From BBC ● Aug. 6, 2026

"It's all a bit unwritten because we've never had an AI agent break out of its sandbox and hack other people on the internet before," he said.

From Barron's ● Aug. 2, 2026

But in the three hacks the company eventually discovered, Claude didn’t break out of a sandbox; it simply wandered out of systems where the sandbox didn’t exist.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 30, 2026

Cat looked at the boys, who had moved to the sandbox.

From "Caterpillar Summer" by Gillian McDunn

The bombshell announcement was full of scary, highly technical terms: "a swarm of sandboxes", "agentic attacker", and "self-migrating command and control".

From BBC ● Jul. 24, 2026

As part of the proposal, the European Union would change its landmark AI Act, allowing more developers to make use of regulatory sandboxes, controlled environments where companies can test products.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 19, 2025

What’s undeniable, though, is that her extraordinary artist’s eye and soulful nature emerged at an age when the rest of us were still content to simply play in our sandboxes.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 31, 2025

It just means that you get an opportunity to play in sandboxes that you may not have otherwise.

From Salon ● Aug. 24, 2024

Like most other major universities, Berkeley tended to think of chemists, biologists, physicists, and engineers all as inhabitants of discrete sandboxes.

From "Big Science" by Michael Hiltzik