A cheeky old British slang term for a snuffbox — the small ornate container used to carry powdered tobacco (snuff) that was inhaled through the nose.
A cheeky old British slang term for a snuffbox — the small ornate container used to carry powdered tobacco (snuff) that was inhaled through the nose. The name is entirely logical: you open the box, take a pinch, sniff it up, and sneeze. It's the kind of blunt descriptive nickname that Georgian and Victorian England was excellent at producing. Today it's more historical curiosity than active vocabulary, but it has genuine charm.
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UK and Irish slang — Cockney, Scouse, Geordie, Yorkshire, Glaswegian, Brummie, Welsh, West Country, plus Irish English. Centuries of regional dialects feeding into modern British and Irish street talk.
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(US, slang, dated) Prison.
(slang) A person's nose.
A dated British colloquial expression for a modest country house — not a grand estate but a comfortable rural retreat, the kind of unpretentious weekend getaway that a well-off Victorian or Edwardian professional might maintain. The word 'box' conveys smallness and practicality rather than grandeur; a country-box was where you went to shoot game or escape London smog, not to impress anyone. The phrase has a pleasantly self-deprecating quality that suits the British sensibility.
(Cockney rhyming slang) Syphilis.
He produced a silver sneeze-box from his coat pocket and offered a pinch to anyone interested.
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(UK, slang, dated) A snuffbox.
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