crackerbox apartment
- noun
- /ˈkrækərˌbɑks əˈpɑrtmənt/
- Informal
:
apartamento pequeño
- It was difficult to fit all their furniture into their tiny crackerbox apartment.
Examples
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After his divorce, he moved into a crackerbox apartment on the outskirts of town.
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She dreamed of owning a house instead of renting a crackerbox apartment.
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Living in a crackerbox apartment can be quite challenging.
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They decided to move out of their crackerbox apartment.
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After his divorce, he moved into a crackerbox apartment on the outskirts of town.
-
It was difficult to fit all their furniture into their tiny crackerbox apartment.
-
She dreamed of owning a house instead of renting a crackerbox apartment.
Synonyms
8
3.4
A small rectangular room or apartment that feels cramped
A small, simple shelter where people live, often temporary
Antonyms
How Cramped
Surface Forms
Morphology
crackerbox + apartment
The compound 'crackerbox' is built from 'cracker' + 'box' and evokes the image of a very small box, so a B1 learner who knows those words and 'apartment' can likely infer a very small, cramped living space. However, the negative connotations of poor construction and the idiomaticized, dialectal nature of 'crackerbox' (rare in many varieties) are not fully predictable, so full meaning requires some exposure.
Etymology
Crackerbox apartment may come from the picture of a small, thin wooden cracker box used to hold crackers. Because a cracker box is tiny and cheap, calling a home a crackerbox apartment suggests it is very small and poorly made, so it means 'a small, cramped, and often poorly built apartment'.