alms box
- noun
- /ɑlmz bɑks/
:
caja de limosnas
- Tourists admired the ornate alms box that had stood in the chapel for centuries.
Examples
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The church placed an alms box near the entrance for parishioners to donate to the needy.
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Coins clinked as the children dropped them into the old wooden alms box.
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Please donate to the alms box at the entrance.
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The church has an alms box for the needy.
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During the service, the priest reminded everyone to contribute to the alms box to support those in need.
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The church recently renovated its old alms box to encourage more donations from the congregation.
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They placed the alms box at the entrance so that visitors could easily donate to local charities.
Synonyms
2
5.5
A place in a church where people put money to help needy people
A box in a church for collecting small donations for charity
A box for collecting donations in a church or public place
A tray people pass around during a religious service to collect money
A shallow dish that people pass around during a religious service to collect money
How Secure
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'a box for collecting donations' is directly and compositionally derived from 'alms' (donations to the poor) + 'box' (a container), following a common noun+container pattern. This structure is cross-linguistically common and would be immediately understood by a B1 learner who already knows both constituent words, although 'alms' can be somewhat formal or archaic in use.
Etymology
The noun alms box comes from churches: people would drop coins called alms into a wooden box to help the poor, so the phrase means 'a box for collecting money for the poor'.