See box checker on Wiktionary
{
"etymology_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "en",
"2": "box",
"3": "checker"
},
"expansion": "box + checker",
"name": "com"
}
],
"etymology_text": "From box + checker.",
"forms": [
{
"form": "box checkers",
"tags": [
"plural"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {},
"expansion": "box checker (plural box checkers)",
"name": "en-noun"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "noun",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "2021, Steve Prziborowski, 101 Tips to Ace Your Promotional Exam, page 81:",
"text": "Unfortunately, appearing to just be a box-checker is a very common occurrence in today's fire service, and this results in a number of candidates actually failing an event, particularly the emergency simulation exercise.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2021, George David Miller, Reinventing American Jurisprudence, page 2:",
"text": "For the box checker, reorientation is seen as overreach. For the box checker, originality is seen not looking before leaping.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2022, Rebecca Forster, Distant Relations:",
"text": "Jane had pegged her for a box-checker who didn't give a twit about what she was actually doing.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2022, John Ross, Team Unity:",
"text": "Box checkers are the people who almost seem as if they're checking the boxes as they're talking , doing things out of obligation or suggestion rather than because they truly care .",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"A person who follows instructions to the letter and avoids taking any risks."
],
"id": "en-box_checker-en-noun-Yz4o6mD0",
"links": [
[
"derogatory",
"derogatory"
],
[
"follow",
"follow"
],
[
"instruction",
"instruction"
],
[
"to the letter",
"to the letter"
],
[
"avoid",
"avoid"
],
[
"risk",
"risk"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(derogatory) A person who follows instructions to the letter and avoids taking any risks."
],
"tags": [
"derogatory"
]
},
{
"categories": [],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "2017, Joy Mangano, Inventing Joy: Dare to Build a Brave & Creative Life, page 250:",
"text": "Sometimes we feel like we have to be the box-checkers of our lives. We make a list, and we don't stop until we check off every box. We strive for perfection.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2021, Michelle Obama, Becoming:",
"text": "I was a box checker, marching to the beat of effort/result, effort/result.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2022, Jonathan Bergmann, The Mastery Learning Handbook:",
"text": "I have found that there are two categories of students who get ahead—those who I call the box checkers and those who learn quickly and well.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2023, Jessica Galica, Leap: Why It's Time to Let Go to Get Ahead in Your Career:",
"text": "A \"box checker” who put her head down and followed the rules, she worked hard in school and went on to graduate from Princeton University and Harvard Law School and land a coveted attorney position at a law firm paying rich six-figure salaries and extra bonuses.",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"A person who strives to live up to the expectations of others; a person who follows the rules and strives to achieve the conventional definition of success."
],
"id": "en-box_checker-en-noun-eNpD0H0K",
"links": [
[
"strive",
"strive"
],
[
"live up to",
"live up to"
],
[
"expectation",
"expectation"
],
[
"follow",
"follow"
],
[
"rule",
"rule"
],
[
"achieve",
"achieve"
],
[
"conventional",
"conventional"
],
[
"definition",
"definition"
],
[
"success",
"success"
]
]
},
{
"categories": [],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "1992, Record - Society of Actuaries - Volume 18, Issue 1, page 397:",
"text": "Then the box checker would say, \" Yep, has a Schedule B,\" and by the time somebody read it, they'd understand there was nothing in it.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2017, Timothy Tuohy, Healthcare Information Technology Integrated Project Delivery:",
"text": "We apply these methods because we need tools and there are management demands for status and progress reports, but the project manager is relegated to being a 'box checker' at best and a task master, similar to what I imagine were employed in the construction of the pyramids, at worst.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2019, Anthony Washington, Douglas Scott, Creating AWE for Business, Project, and Agile Management, page 14:",
"text": "With the advent of project-management methodologies, the project manager's career path in some companies has morphed into a simple \"box checker”. Completion of a checklist does not mean there has been effective project management or delivery of an acceptable product.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2024, George M. Guess, International Development Management for Public and Nonprofit Organizations:",
"text": "When one interviews for a management job, she or he needs to know if the organization is treating their particular posistion as a noun, that is, simply a position on the organization chart, a potential box-checker or form-filler.",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"One whose job consists primarily of administrative work indicating tasks that have been completed."
],
"id": "en-box_checker-en-noun-cycvDmgk",
"links": [
[
"job",
"job"
],
[
"consist",
"consist"
],
[
"primarily",
"primarily"
],
[
"administrative",
"administrative"
],
[
"work",
"work"
],
[
"indicating",
"indicate"
],
[
"task",
"task"
],
[
"complete",
"complete"
]
]
},
{
"categories": [
{
"_dis": "14 21 14 36 15",
"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
"parents": [
"Entries with incorrect language header",
"Entry maintenance"
],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "12 17 15 39 16",
"kind": "other",
"name": "Pages with 1 entry",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "14 15 16 39 17",
"kind": "other",
"name": "Pages with entries",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
}
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "2003, Kevin R. Johnson, Mixed Race America and the Law, page 309:",
"text": "Today a box checker may escape detection by claiming Hispanic origin at the outset of a hiring, contracting, or admissions process. Would-be box checkers realize that having a Spanish surname is not a necessary condition of being “Hispanic,” so they need not call attention to themselves by changing their name.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2012, Carolyn Kenny, Tina Ngaroimata Fraser, Living Indigenous Leadership, page 182:",
"text": "The seventy-plus so-called box checkers remained a mystery to the active students. They wondered, \"Why would someone check a box on an admissions application but not participate in activities that are relevant to the community they are representing?\"",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2013, Richard Lee Colvin, Tilting at Windmills:",
"text": "She called Ottinger a \"tool\" of the business community and Lopez a \"box checker,” apparently meaning that he was only nominally Latino and that he had acted in a way that was detrimental to the interests of Latinos.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2018, Daisy Verduzco Reyes, Learning to Be Latino: How Colleges Shape Identity Politics, page 92:",
"text": "We have a specific joke to talk about people, who are Latino that we know don't identify. We call them box checkers.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2022, Andrew C. Garrod, Robert Kilkenny, Adolescent Portraits: Identity and Challenges:",
"text": "As I see it now, I was a sellout in high school. I was a box-checker. I was a coconut. Name the insult and I was the epitome of it.",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Someone who is counted in an organization as representing a minority ethnic group but who is so assimilated into the dominant culture that their ethnic status becomes meaningless."
],
"id": "en-box_checker-en-noun-lVzedGb2",
"links": [
[
"count",
"count"
],
[
"organization",
"organization"
],
[
"represent",
"represent"
],
[
"minority",
"minority"
],
[
"ethnic group",
"ethnic group"
],
[
"assimilated",
"assimilated"
],
[
"dominant",
"dominant"
],
[
"culture",
"culture"
],
[
"ethnic",
"ethnic"
],
[
"status",
"status"
],
[
"meaningless",
"meaningless"
]
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "high-cheekboner"
}
]
},
{
"categories": [],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "2004, Mark Pogrebin, About Criminals: A View of the Offender's World, page 91:",
"text": "Examples of the types of jobs the women worked at are fast food attendant or cook, box checker at a department store , housekeeper, dietary aide, beautician, bakery shop clerk, assembly line worker for a manufacturing company, child care aide, hot dog stand attendant, cashier, waitress, hostess, receptionist, go-go dancer, and secretary.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2020, Holly Parker, Back on the Market: A Realtor's Guide to Love and Life:",
"text": "Well, there I was, at age thirty-two, an official box-checker. DIVORCED. Don't believe me? Look at the box.",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see box, checker. Someone or something that checks boxes."
],
"id": "en-box_checker-en-noun-cr8Cwwwg",
"links": [
[
"box",
"box#English"
],
[
"checker",
"checker#English"
],
[
"checks boxes",
"check box"
]
],
"synonyms": [
{
"_dis1": "10 10 4 9 66",
"word": "box-checker"
}
]
}
],
"word": "box checker"
}
{
"categories": [
"English compound terms",
"English countable nouns",
"English entries with incorrect language header",
"English lemmas",
"English multiword terms",
"English nouns",
"Pages with 1 entry",
"Pages with entries"
],
"etymology_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "en",
"2": "box",
"3": "checker"
},
"expansion": "box + checker",
"name": "com"
}
],
"etymology_text": "From box + checker.",
"forms": [
{
"form": "box checkers",
"tags": [
"plural"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {},
"expansion": "box checker (plural box checkers)",
"name": "en-noun"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "noun",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
"English derogatory terms",
"English terms with quotations"
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "2021, Steve Prziborowski, 101 Tips to Ace Your Promotional Exam, page 81:",
"text": "Unfortunately, appearing to just be a box-checker is a very common occurrence in today's fire service, and this results in a number of candidates actually failing an event, particularly the emergency simulation exercise.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2021, George David Miller, Reinventing American Jurisprudence, page 2:",
"text": "For the box checker, reorientation is seen as overreach. For the box checker, originality is seen not looking before leaping.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2022, Rebecca Forster, Distant Relations:",
"text": "Jane had pegged her for a box-checker who didn't give a twit about what she was actually doing.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2022, John Ross, Team Unity:",
"text": "Box checkers are the people who almost seem as if they're checking the boxes as they're talking , doing things out of obligation or suggestion rather than because they truly care .",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"A person who follows instructions to the letter and avoids taking any risks."
],
"links": [
[
"derogatory",
"derogatory"
],
[
"follow",
"follow"
],
[
"instruction",
"instruction"
],
[
"to the letter",
"to the letter"
],
[
"avoid",
"avoid"
],
[
"risk",
"risk"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(derogatory) A person who follows instructions to the letter and avoids taking any risks."
],
"tags": [
"derogatory"
]
},
{
"categories": [
"English terms with quotations"
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "2017, Joy Mangano, Inventing Joy: Dare to Build a Brave & Creative Life, page 250:",
"text": "Sometimes we feel like we have to be the box-checkers of our lives. We make a list, and we don't stop until we check off every box. We strive for perfection.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2021, Michelle Obama, Becoming:",
"text": "I was a box checker, marching to the beat of effort/result, effort/result.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2022, Jonathan Bergmann, The Mastery Learning Handbook:",
"text": "I have found that there are two categories of students who get ahead—those who I call the box checkers and those who learn quickly and well.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2023, Jessica Galica, Leap: Why It's Time to Let Go to Get Ahead in Your Career:",
"text": "A \"box checker” who put her head down and followed the rules, she worked hard in school and went on to graduate from Princeton University and Harvard Law School and land a coveted attorney position at a law firm paying rich six-figure salaries and extra bonuses.",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"A person who strives to live up to the expectations of others; a person who follows the rules and strives to achieve the conventional definition of success."
],
"links": [
[
"strive",
"strive"
],
[
"live up to",
"live up to"
],
[
"expectation",
"expectation"
],
[
"follow",
"follow"
],
[
"rule",
"rule"
],
[
"achieve",
"achieve"
],
[
"conventional",
"conventional"
],
[
"definition",
"definition"
],
[
"success",
"success"
]
]
},
{
"categories": [
"English terms with quotations"
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "1992, Record - Society of Actuaries - Volume 18, Issue 1, page 397:",
"text": "Then the box checker would say, \" Yep, has a Schedule B,\" and by the time somebody read it, they'd understand there was nothing in it.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2017, Timothy Tuohy, Healthcare Information Technology Integrated Project Delivery:",
"text": "We apply these methods because we need tools and there are management demands for status and progress reports, but the project manager is relegated to being a 'box checker' at best and a task master, similar to what I imagine were employed in the construction of the pyramids, at worst.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2019, Anthony Washington, Douglas Scott, Creating AWE for Business, Project, and Agile Management, page 14:",
"text": "With the advent of project-management methodologies, the project manager's career path in some companies has morphed into a simple \"box checker”. Completion of a checklist does not mean there has been effective project management or delivery of an acceptable product.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2024, George M. Guess, International Development Management for Public and Nonprofit Organizations:",
"text": "When one interviews for a management job, she or he needs to know if the organization is treating their particular posistion as a noun, that is, simply a position on the organization chart, a potential box-checker or form-filler.",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"One whose job consists primarily of administrative work indicating tasks that have been completed."
],
"links": [
[
"job",
"job"
],
[
"consist",
"consist"
],
[
"primarily",
"primarily"
],
[
"administrative",
"administrative"
],
[
"work",
"work"
],
[
"indicating",
"indicate"
],
[
"task",
"task"
],
[
"complete",
"complete"
]
]
},
{
"categories": [
"English terms with quotations"
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "2003, Kevin R. Johnson, Mixed Race America and the Law, page 309:",
"text": "Today a box checker may escape detection by claiming Hispanic origin at the outset of a hiring, contracting, or admissions process. Would-be box checkers realize that having a Spanish surname is not a necessary condition of being “Hispanic,” so they need not call attention to themselves by changing their name.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2012, Carolyn Kenny, Tina Ngaroimata Fraser, Living Indigenous Leadership, page 182:",
"text": "The seventy-plus so-called box checkers remained a mystery to the active students. They wondered, \"Why would someone check a box on an admissions application but not participate in activities that are relevant to the community they are representing?\"",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2013, Richard Lee Colvin, Tilting at Windmills:",
"text": "She called Ottinger a \"tool\" of the business community and Lopez a \"box checker,” apparently meaning that he was only nominally Latino and that he had acted in a way that was detrimental to the interests of Latinos.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2018, Daisy Verduzco Reyes, Learning to Be Latino: How Colleges Shape Identity Politics, page 92:",
"text": "We have a specific joke to talk about people, who are Latino that we know don't identify. We call them box checkers.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2022, Andrew C. Garrod, Robert Kilkenny, Adolescent Portraits: Identity and Challenges:",
"text": "As I see it now, I was a sellout in high school. I was a box-checker. I was a coconut. Name the insult and I was the epitome of it.",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Someone who is counted in an organization as representing a minority ethnic group but who is so assimilated into the dominant culture that their ethnic status becomes meaningless."
],
"links": [
[
"count",
"count"
],
[
"organization",
"organization"
],
[
"represent",
"represent"
],
[
"minority",
"minority"
],
[
"ethnic group",
"ethnic group"
],
[
"assimilated",
"assimilated"
],
[
"dominant",
"dominant"
],
[
"culture",
"culture"
],
[
"ethnic",
"ethnic"
],
[
"status",
"status"
],
[
"meaningless",
"meaningless"
]
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "high-cheekboner"
}
]
},
{
"categories": [
"English terms with quotations"
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "2004, Mark Pogrebin, About Criminals: A View of the Offender's World, page 91:",
"text": "Examples of the types of jobs the women worked at are fast food attendant or cook, box checker at a department store , housekeeper, dietary aide, beautician, bakery shop clerk, assembly line worker for a manufacturing company, child care aide, hot dog stand attendant, cashier, waitress, hostess, receptionist, go-go dancer, and secretary.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2020, Holly Parker, Back on the Market: A Realtor's Guide to Love and Life:",
"text": "Well, there I was, at age thirty-two, an official box-checker. DIVORCED. Don't believe me? Look at the box.",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see box, checker. Someone or something that checks boxes."
],
"links": [
[
"box",
"box#English"
],
[
"checker",
"checker#English"
],
[
"checks boxes",
"check box"
]
]
}
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "box-checker"
}
],
"word": "box checker"
}
Download raw JSONL data for box checker meaning in All languages combined (8.5kB)
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-12-15 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-12-04 using wiktextract (8a39820 and 4401a4c). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.
If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.