Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A smoothing-iron containing an inclosed space for live coals to keep it hot.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A hollow smoothing iron containing a heater within.

Etymologies

Sorry, no etymologies found.

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Examples

  • Thinking of her future absence, mother turned away and cried; and the box-iron singed the blanket.

    Lorna Doone Richard Doddridge 2004

  • If it wasn't for the look of the thing, one might as well shove one's foot into a box-iron.

    Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, July 24, 1841 Various

  • Margaret returned to the parlor, and from the kitchen Jean could hear the heater tilted backward and forward in the box-iron -- a pleasant, homely sound when there is happiness in the house.

    The Little Minister 1898

  • [605] What the great TWALMLEY was so proud of having invented, was neither more nor less than a kind of box-iron for smoothing linen.

    Life Of Johnson Boswell, James, 1740-1795 1887

  • When the dame returned, she resumed her box-iron, in which the heater went rattling about, as, standing on one leg -- the other was so much shorter -- she moved it to and fro over the garment on the table.

    Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood George MacDonald 1864

  • Thinking of her future absence, mother turned away and cried; and the box-iron singed the blanket.

    Lorna Doone; a Romance of Exmoor 1862

  • When it has absorbed the steam, and while wet, iron it with a box-iron.

    Beeton's Book of Needlework 1850

  • It was starched, hung over the back of a chair in the sunshine, and was then laid on the ironing-blanket; then came the warm box-iron.

    Andersen's Fairy Tales 1840

  • "Rag!" said the box-iron; and went proudly over the collar: for she fancied she was a steam-engine, that would go on the railroad and draw the waggons.

    Andersen's Fairy Tales 1840

  • (Oxford English Dictionary) [19.4] A box-iron is "a smoothing iron with a cavity to contain a heater."

    Inventory of Robert Carter's Estate, November [1733] 1733

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