Green’s Dictionary of Slang

see separate entries.

see under charlie n.¹

see separate entry.

to carry out any enterprise smartly and efficiently.

1938		(con. 1910s) F.D. Sharpe Sharpe of the Flying Squad 172: I realized I should have to ‘box clever’.
1938		J. Curtis They Drive by Night 154: Now he had to box clever. Let’s see. Alibi. Yerce.
1943		‘Henry Green’ Caught (2001) 43: So Pye had played safe, or, as Shiner remarked, boxed clever.
1956		J. Curtis Look Long Upon a Monkey 63: The only wide man in the room, it was up to him to box clever and use his nut.
1958		(con. 1940s) B. Behan Borstal Boy 162: Box clever [...] and find out who you’re having a bundle with.
2000		J.J. Connolly Layer Cake 214: I’ve gotta box so fuckin clever with those cunts from CIB3 sniffin around.

1. to go without a meal.

1823		‘Jon Bee’ Dict. of the Turf, the Ring, the Chase, etc.
1835		G. Kent Modern Flash Dict.
1847		Haliwell Archaic Words (1881) 202: box-harry. To dine with Duke Humphrey; to care after having been extravagant.
1857		Bell’s Life in Sydney 19 Sept. 1/3: To economise his pocket-money he has frequently contrived to ‘box Harry’.
1860		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. (2nd edn) 104: Box-Harry [...] dining with Duke Humphrey, i.e. going without.
1889–90		Barrère & Leland Dict. of Sl., Jargon and Cant.
1894		G.F. Northall Folk-Phrases of Four Counties 26: To box harry and chew rag, i.e., to go on short commons.
1902		N&Q 7 June 450/1: An old woman [...] was telling me that she had only by her a very poor supply of seed [i.e. potatoes], and finished up by ejaculating, ‘Never mind, I must box Harry...’ When questioned [she said] she must needs do without.

2. to take lunch and tea at the same time.

1857		‘Ducange Anglicus’ Vulgar Tongue 4: Box-Harry Tea and Dinner at one meal. Com. Travellers.
1860		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. (2nd edn) 104: Box-Harry a term with bagmen or commercial travellers, implying dinner and tea at one meal.
1862		G. Borrow Wild Wales II i 3: Those [commercial travellers] whose employers were in a small way of business, or allowed them insufficient salaries, frequently used to ‘box Harry’, that is have a beef-steak, or mutton-chop, or perhaps bacon and eggs [...] instead of the regular dinner of a commercial gentleman.
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1889–90		Barrère & Leland Dict. of Sl., Jargon and Cant.
1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.

(UK gang, also box up) to imprison.

2018-20

T. Thorne (ed.) ‘Drill Slang Glossary’ at Forensic Linguistic Databank 🌐 Boxed, boxed in, boxed up- imprisoned.

to drink briskly.

c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Box it about Boys, Drink briskly round.
1753		Richardson Sir Charles Grandison (1812) I 27: We boxed it about, and had rare fun.

see separate entry.

to walk off, to leave.

1822

D. Carey Life in Paris 425: They told me that a young woman had boxed her mumps* (*walked off) almost the instant I left her.

(Aus./N.Z.) to have an affair, to have extra-marital sex.

1978		G. Tucker Thoroughbreds Are My Life 61: I began to wonder how ‘Ginger’ had turned up. My mother was a very dignified English schoolmistress and I certainly could not suspect that she had ‘boxed out of the ring’ .
1991		Examiner (Auckland) 22 Aug. 6: Sydney businessman is caught out by the missus doing – shall we say – a bit of boxing outside the ring The missus knew the sweet young lady involved.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. 33: box outside the ring Unconventional or illicit activity, such as having an extramarital affair.

see under bozack n.

1. to answer all possible questions, to adapt oneself to a wide variety of circumstances.

1751		Smollett Peregrine Pickle (1964) 31: A tight, good-humoured, sensible wench, who knows very well how to box her compass. [Ibid.] 597: I’ll teach you to box the compass, my dear.
1762		Smollett Sir Launcelot Greaves II 209: Heave your eye into the binnacle, and box your compass.
1872		G.P. Burnham Memoirs of the US Secret Service 90: He had ‘boxed the compass’ pretty effectually, thereabouts, and had passed his time in various attempts to earn his livelihood.
1922		Joyce Ulysses 582: [...] having detected a discrepancy between his name (assuming he was the person he represented himself to be and not sailing under false colours after having boxed the compass on the strict q.t. somewhere).
1947		(con. 1944) J.H. Burns Gallery (1948) 287: This meant that every twelve hours his compass was boxed.

2. (US) to order everything on the menu.

1926

Maines & Grant Wise-crack Dict.

to masturbate.

1744		Machine 11: Selfish Letcher that does Jesuit box, / Or Huffling, Gigging, Semigigging, Larking, / Or that queer Practice, by the Cull call’d Barking.
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: to box the jesuit and get cockroaches, (sea term) for masturbation. A crime it is said much practised by the reverend fathers of that society.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1862		E. de la Bédollière Londres et les Anglais 313/1: to box the jesuit, and get cock roaches, Intraduisable.
2005		Roger’s Profanisaurus in Viz Apr. 47: bushmonk n. A saucy chap who secretes himself in an item of shrubbery for the purposes of boxing the jesuit.

to overturn someone, e.g. a watchman, in a sentry or similar box.

1852

Thackeray Henry Esmond (1898) 189: Nothing more delighted the old lady than to fancy that mon cousin, the incorrigible young sinner, was abroad boxing the watch, or scouring St. Giles’s.

to leave the table after drinking only moderately.

1826

C.M. Westmacott Eng. Spy II 293: ‘I must sherry directly after dinner, gentlemen,’ said one. ‘What,’ retorted the company, ‘boxing the wine bin! committing treason, by making a sovereign go farther than he is required by law.’.