Pylimitics

Everybody knows what a “box” is, right? Yup, it’s a type of small evergreen shrub used ornamentally. The word goes back to Old English, where its first known use is from the early 900s in Codex Diplomaticus Aevi Saxonici. The citation is “Of ðere gemear~codan æfsan to ðon readan slo..of ðam treowe to ðere wican æt ðam boxe,” but it’s Old English, so it’s not particularly useful unless you’ve studied that language. 

But wait, you say, that’s not what you were thinking of when you saw the word “box”? Maybe you were thinking of wood. There’s a type of tree (unrelated to the shrub) called a “box tree”, and its wood is called “boxwood” or simply “box”. This kind of “box” is centuries newer; Chaucer used it in the Legend of the Good Woman in 1285: “Pale as box sche was.”

No, you’re right, that’s not what came to mind either. You must have been thinking of another way Chaucer used “box” in the very same story: “Hadde in armys manye a blode box.” This one is a verb, and it means to hit someone, usually with your fist. This is the “box” that’s still around as “boxing.” “Boxing” as in fighting is quite recent, as versions of “box” go; it’s only been around since the 1700s. 

Of course, “boxing” can also mean “putting something into a container,” and the container is also called a “box.” This might be what came to mind when you first saw “box.” The box you put things in also goes back to Old English, and might come from the wood of the box tree (which evidently is a good material for making containers), or it might be from the Latin “buxum,” which also meant boxwood. Or it might be derived from a different Latin word, “pyxis,” which in Medieval Latin became “buxis” — these meant something more like a wooden container. By the way, “pyxis” is the root of another English word: “pyx,” which is the vessel in a church where the bread for communion is stored, as well as the box at a mint where sample coins are deposited for random quality assurance testing. 

The container version of “box” and its version of “boxing” is where Boxing Day comes from — in Commonwealth countries that’s December 26, and comes from a custom that arose in the early 1600s — and had to do with the onset of industrialization. On the day after Christmas, workers in a shop or factory would circulate around the town carrying a special box with a slot in the top. They were soliciting donations, and the idea was that you’d put money in the box through the slot. James Murray (you may have heard of this gent before; he was the original editor of the Oxford English Dictionary) included a surprisingly personal entry for Christmas box:

“A present or gratuity given at Christmas: in Great Britain, usually confined to gratuities given to those who are supposed to have a vague claim upon the donor for services rendered to him as one of the general public by whom they are employed and paid, or as a customer of their legal employer; the undefined theory being that as they have done offices for this person, for which he has not directly paid them, some direct acknowledgement is becoming at Christmas.”

Murray seems to have disapproved of Boxing Day and the Christmas Box. We don’t know whether he would go so far as to box the ears of anyone hitting him up for a donation. If he did, that could end up in a proper boxing match — and another product of industrialization, the internal combustion engine, includes a type called the “boxer engine.” These got that name because the pistons are arranged in horizontal pairs. Supposedly as they reciprocate they reminded somebody of a fighter jabbing out with his fists — boxing. There are only a few companies producing engines with this design: BMW motorcycles, and Subaru and Porsche automobiles. Just like the Ford company made their “V-8” engine design a marketing factor starting in the 1930s, all three of the “boxer engine” companies tend to emphasize the slightly unusual design of their engines. Although I suspect most people don’t care one bit about the layout of the cylinders of their car’s engine, Porsche actually named a car after its engine: the Boxster — which seems like it could also be a good name for people who enjoy attending fights, or even for ornamental gardeners.