pillbox

English

pillbox (sense 2)

Alternative forms

Etymology

pill + box

Pronunciation

  • (UK) IPA(key): /ˈpɪl bɒks/
  • (US) IPA(key): /ˈpɪl bɑːks/

Noun

pillbox (plural pillboxes)

  1. A small box in which pills are kept.
  2. (military) A flat, concrete gun emplacement.
    • 1944 December 19, “Germans Stiff in Southern Reich”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, page 4:
      It was reported that the Germans had established trench works in front of the pillboxes. The enemy was said to have taken refuge from American fire in the pillboxes, later emerging to take up the trench positions.
    • 2019, Vasily Grossman, Stalingrad, page 226:
      Beneath the wide steppe sky women in white kerchiefs were digging trenches and building small pillboxes, looking up now and again in case 'those vermin' were on the wing.
  3. (archaic, slang) A doctor's carriage.
    • 1838, Oasis: An Anthology to Divert an Idle Hour, volume 1, page 9:
      The doctor generously told him where he lived in a loud and audible manner, gave him half-a-crown, and was about ascending his pill-box, after bidding him call upon him, in a day or two, when a servant in a splendid livery stepped forward from the hotel []
    • 1863, Elizabeth Caroline Grey, Good Society; Or, Contrasts of Character, page 5:
      [] the commercial traveller cuts in and out of the line in the dog-cart that carries his samples; the doctor contrives to be seen there in his pill-box on wheels; the eminent tragedian airs himself in a buggy; []

Derived terms

Translations

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