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Glite Dictionary
tuck box

tuck box

7.6
A small box where boarding school students keep sweets or snacks
  • noun
  • UK
translation icon : caja de bocadillos
  • At the boarding school, every student was allowed to keep a tuck box filled with snacks.

Examples

  • He always packed his favorite chocolate bars in his tuck box for recess.

  • His mother had given him five pounds, and he had set off to the village to visit Mrs. Ishak and buy the allotted amount of sweets, chocolates, and biscuits that he was permitted to take to Templehall in his tuck-box, which were meant to last him for a full term.

    Fiction book (1990)

  • Because she had the two boys with her, and all their clobber—trunks, tuck-boxes, duvets, rugger balls, and book-bags—

    Fiction book (1990)

  • During lunch, she eagerly opened her tuck box to share cookies with her friends.

Synonyms

lunchbox
vstuck box
15 1.0

A container for carrying food to eat at work or school

is used particularly by schoolchildren at boarding schools rather than general use

How Small

tuck box
  • UK
7.6
lunchbox
15 1.0
box
∞ 1.0
chest
363 1.0

Surface Forms

tuck box singular
tuck boxes plural

Morphology

tuck + box

The meaning 'a box for snacks' is directly derived from combining 'tuck' (sweets/small snacks) with 'box' (a container); it denotes a container holding tuck. This noun–noun compounding follows a common and transparent English pattern (a box for X), so a learner who knows both constituent words should be able to infer the MWE's meaning.

Etymology

Tuck box comes from school life: tuck was the word for small 'treats' sold at school, and children often kept these sweets in a small box under their bed. So, a tuck box means a small box for keeping snacks at school.