"dispatch box" meaning in All languages combined

See dispatch box on Wiktionary

Noun [English]

IPA: /dɪˈspætʃ ˌbɒks/ [Received-Pronunciation], /dəˈspætʃ ˌbɑks/ [General-American] Forms: dispatch boxes [plural]
Etymology: From dispatch (“important official message sent by a diplomat, government official, military officer, etc.”) + box. Sense 2 (“box placed on a table in a legislative debating chamber and used as a lectern”) is from the fact that in the Parliament of the United Kingdom dispatch boxes used by ministers and other Members of Parliament to carry important documents (sense 1) were formerly used as lecterns; these have generally been replaced by cases, usually made of wood, specifically made to be used as lecterns. Etymology templates: {{compound|en|dispatch|box|notext=1|t1=important official message sent by a diplomat, government official, military officer, etc.|type=endocentric}} dispatch (“important official message sent by a diplomat, government official, military officer, etc.”) + box Head templates: {{en-noun}} dispatch box (plural dispatch boxes)
  1. A box or case with a lock that is used for carrying dispatches (“important official messages”) and other documents. Categories (topical): Bags Synonyms: dispatch case Translations (box or case with a lock that is used for carrying dispatches and other documents): asiakirjalaatikko (Finnish)
    Sense id: en-dispatch_box-en-noun-PrpFXVVl Disambiguation of Bags: 72 28 Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 60 40 Disambiguation of 'box or case with a lock that is used for carrying dispatches and other documents': 88 12
  2. (Commonwealth, politics) A box that is placed on a table in a legislative debating chamber and used as a lectern for addressing the legislature. Tags: Commonwealth Categories (topical): Politics Translations (box that is placed on a table in a legislative debating chamber and used as a lectern for addressing the legislature): asiakirjalaatikko (Finnish)
    Sense id: en-dispatch_box-en-noun-NHiXWGQp Categories (other): Commonwealth English, English endocentric compounds Disambiguation of English endocentric compounds: 41 59 Topics: government, politics Disambiguation of 'box that is placed on a table in a legislative debating chamber and used as a lectern for addressing the legislature': 6 94
The following are not (yet) sense-disambiguated
Synonyms: despatch box Related terms: red box

Inflected forms

Alternative forms

Download JSON data for dispatch box meaning in All languages combined (8.2kB)

{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "dispatch",
        "3": "box",
        "notext": "1",
        "t1": "important official message sent by a diplomat, government official, military officer, etc.",
        "type": "endocentric"
      },
      "expansion": "dispatch (“important official message sent by a diplomat, government official, military officer, etc.”) + box",
      "name": "compound"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From dispatch (“important official message sent by a diplomat, government official, military officer, etc.”) + box. Sense 2 (“box placed on a table in a legislative debating chamber and used as a lectern”) is from the fact that in the Parliament of the United Kingdom dispatch boxes used by ministers and other Members of Parliament to carry important documents (sense 1) were formerly used as lecterns; these have generally been replaced by cases, usually made of wood, specifically made to be used as lecterns.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "dispatch boxes",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "dispatch box (plural dispatch boxes)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "hyphenation": [
    "dis‧patch"
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "related": [
    {
      "_dis1": "54 46",
      "word": "red box"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "60 40",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "72 28",
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Bags",
          "orig": "en:Bags",
          "parents": [
            "Containers",
            "Tools",
            "Technology",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2011 March 1, “FOI [Freedom of Information] Release: Red Boxes”, in Government of the United Kingdom, archived from the original on 2022-02-08",
          "text": "Ministers are permitted to use ordinary lockable briefcases to transport information which has been classified 'Confidential' or below. For information with a higher security level (such as 'Secret') they are required to use dispatch boxes, which offer a higher level of security, and which are usually red. However a travel version of the despatch box is also available in black, which offers the same level of security as a red despatch box, but is designed to be less conspicuous. In practice Ministers use despatch boxes for transporting the majority of their documents due to the greater level of security they offer.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2014, Will Summerhouse, “The Dispatch Box”, in Orion Poe and the Lost Explorer (The Amazing Adventures of Orion Poe; book 1), Seattle, Wash.: Shake-A-Leg Press",
          "text": "Confound it, man! You're being a bloody fool. Drop that pistol and come out with my dispatch box. I'll see that you get a fair trial.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2014 December 17, “Winston Churchill’s dispatch box sells at auction for £158,500”, in Alan Rusbridger, editor, The Guardian, London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2022-02-01",
          "text": "Winston Churchill's old dispatch box has been sold for £158,500 – over 25 times more than it was expected to fetch. The red leather box was used by Churchill in his time as secretary of state for the colonies, a position he held from February 1921 until October 1922.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A box or case with a lock that is used for carrying dispatches (“important official messages”) and other documents."
      ],
      "id": "en-dispatch_box-en-noun-PrpFXVVl",
      "links": [
        [
          "box",
          "box#Noun"
        ],
        [
          "case",
          "case#Noun"
        ],
        [
          "lock",
          "lock#Noun"
        ],
        [
          "used",
          "use#Verb"
        ],
        [
          "carrying",
          "carry#Verb"
        ],
        [
          "dispatches",
          "dispatch#English"
        ],
        [
          "important",
          "important"
        ],
        [
          "official",
          "official#Adjective"
        ],
        [
          "messages",
          "message#Noun"
        ],
        [
          "documents",
          "document#Noun"
        ]
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "dispatch case"
        }
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "_dis1": "88 12",
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "box or case with a lock that is used for carrying dispatches and other documents",
          "word": "asiakirjalaatikko"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Commonwealth English",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Politics",
          "orig": "en:Politics",
          "parents": [
            "Society",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "41 59",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English endocentric compounds",
          "parents": [
            "Endocentric compounds",
            "Compound terms",
            "Terms by etymology"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1984, Jeffrey Archer, chapter 29, in First Among Equals, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Linden Press/Simon & Schuster, part 6 (Party Leaders: 1988–1990), page 369",
          "text": "It was about the only attempt at humour Raymond had made at the dispatch box that year, which may have been the reason so few members laughed.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2008 August 31, Melissa Kite, “Dispatch Box vandal caught in the act and culprit is Prime Minister Gordon Brown”, in The Daily Telegraph, London: Telegraph Media Group, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2008-08-31",
          "text": "Officials are used to finding graffiti on the priceless fixtures and fittings in the House of Commons chamber. Teams of French polishers regularly repair damage caused by tourists. But during a recent examination they noticed that the beautifully-carved government Dispatch Box was covered in strange black pen marks. At the next Prime Ministers Questions they stood watch, and caught the culprit in the act. As Gordon Brown gesticulated wildly with his black marker pen, stabbing at the papers in front of him and missing to hit the wood beneath, the awful truth was clear. The PM was the vandal. […] The boxes were a gift from New Zealand after the rebuilding of the House of Commons following the Second World War. The are modelled on the dispatch boxes in the Australian parliament and are made from a strong, teak-like wood from the rare Puriri tree and were thought to be almost indestructible.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2018 October 28, “The Observer view on the budget and the decade of austerity”, in The Observer, London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2021-01-26",
          "text": "There is a familiar pattern that has come to define Theresa May's premiership. Encouraging rhetoric gets periodically wheeled out: the pledges to ease the burden on the \"just about managing\"; the promises to fight the \"burning injustices\" of social inequality. But then a few weeks later, the chancellor gets up at the dispatch box to deliver a budget or an autumn statement and it's as if those words had never been uttered.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2020 October 19, Daniel Boffey, Lisa O’Carroll, “UK refuses to restart Brexit talks despite EU accepting its demands”, in Katharine Viner, editor, The Guardian, London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2022-03-30",
          "text": "Downing Street has refused to restart Brexit deal negotiations despite Michael Gove performing a U-turn at the dispatch box in which he praised a \"constructive move\" by the EU minutes after declaring the talks \"effectively ended\".",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A box that is placed on a table in a legislative debating chamber and used as a lectern for addressing the legislature."
      ],
      "id": "en-dispatch_box-en-noun-NHiXWGQp",
      "links": [
        [
          "politics",
          "politics"
        ],
        [
          "placed",
          "place#Verb"
        ],
        [
          "table",
          "table#Noun"
        ],
        [
          "legislative",
          "legislative"
        ],
        [
          "debating",
          "debating#Noun"
        ],
        [
          "chamber",
          "chamber#Noun"
        ],
        [
          "lectern",
          "lectern"
        ],
        [
          "addressing",
          "address#Verb"
        ],
        [
          "legislature",
          "legislature"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(Commonwealth, politics) A box that is placed on a table in a legislative debating chamber and used as a lectern for addressing the legislature."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "Commonwealth"
      ],
      "topics": [
        "government",
        "politics"
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "_dis1": "6 94",
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "box that is placed on a table in a legislative debating chamber and used as a lectern for addressing the legislature",
          "word": "asiakirjalaatikko"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/dɪˈspætʃ ˌbɒks/",
      "tags": [
        "Received-Pronunciation"
      ]
    },
    {
      "ipa": "/dəˈspætʃ ˌbɑks/",
      "tags": [
        "General-American"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "_dis1": "54 46",
      "word": "despatch box"
    }
  ],
  "wikipedia": [
    "House of Commons of the United Kingdom",
    "Parliament of the United Kingdom"
  ],
  "word": "dispatch box"
}
{
  "categories": [
    "English compound terms",
    "English countable nouns",
    "English endocentric compounds",
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English nouns",
    "English terms with IPA pronunciation",
    "en:Bags"
  ],
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "dispatch",
        "3": "box",
        "notext": "1",
        "t1": "important official message sent by a diplomat, government official, military officer, etc.",
        "type": "endocentric"
      },
      "expansion": "dispatch (“important official message sent by a diplomat, government official, military officer, etc.”) + box",
      "name": "compound"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From dispatch (“important official message sent by a diplomat, government official, military officer, etc.”) + box. Sense 2 (“box placed on a table in a legislative debating chamber and used as a lectern”) is from the fact that in the Parliament of the United Kingdom dispatch boxes used by ministers and other Members of Parliament to carry important documents (sense 1) were formerly used as lecterns; these have generally been replaced by cases, usually made of wood, specifically made to be used as lecterns.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "dispatch boxes",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "dispatch box (plural dispatch boxes)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "hyphenation": [
    "dis‧patch"
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "red box"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2011 March 1, “FOI [Freedom of Information] Release: Red Boxes”, in Government of the United Kingdom, archived from the original on 2022-02-08",
          "text": "Ministers are permitted to use ordinary lockable briefcases to transport information which has been classified 'Confidential' or below. For information with a higher security level (such as 'Secret') they are required to use dispatch boxes, which offer a higher level of security, and which are usually red. However a travel version of the despatch box is also available in black, which offers the same level of security as a red despatch box, but is designed to be less conspicuous. In practice Ministers use despatch boxes for transporting the majority of their documents due to the greater level of security they offer.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2014, Will Summerhouse, “The Dispatch Box”, in Orion Poe and the Lost Explorer (The Amazing Adventures of Orion Poe; book 1), Seattle, Wash.: Shake-A-Leg Press",
          "text": "Confound it, man! You're being a bloody fool. Drop that pistol and come out with my dispatch box. I'll see that you get a fair trial.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2014 December 17, “Winston Churchill’s dispatch box sells at auction for £158,500”, in Alan Rusbridger, editor, The Guardian, London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2022-02-01",
          "text": "Winston Churchill's old dispatch box has been sold for £158,500 – over 25 times more than it was expected to fetch. The red leather box was used by Churchill in his time as secretary of state for the colonies, a position he held from February 1921 until October 1922.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A box or case with a lock that is used for carrying dispatches (“important official messages”) and other documents."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "box",
          "box#Noun"
        ],
        [
          "case",
          "case#Noun"
        ],
        [
          "lock",
          "lock#Noun"
        ],
        [
          "used",
          "use#Verb"
        ],
        [
          "carrying",
          "carry#Verb"
        ],
        [
          "dispatches",
          "dispatch#English"
        ],
        [
          "important",
          "important"
        ],
        [
          "official",
          "official#Adjective"
        ],
        [
          "messages",
          "message#Noun"
        ],
        [
          "documents",
          "document#Noun"
        ]
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "dispatch case"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "Commonwealth English",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "en:Politics"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1984, Jeffrey Archer, chapter 29, in First Among Equals, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Linden Press/Simon & Schuster, part 6 (Party Leaders: 1988–1990), page 369",
          "text": "It was about the only attempt at humour Raymond had made at the dispatch box that year, which may have been the reason so few members laughed.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2008 August 31, Melissa Kite, “Dispatch Box vandal caught in the act and culprit is Prime Minister Gordon Brown”, in The Daily Telegraph, London: Telegraph Media Group, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2008-08-31",
          "text": "Officials are used to finding graffiti on the priceless fixtures and fittings in the House of Commons chamber. Teams of French polishers regularly repair damage caused by tourists. But during a recent examination they noticed that the beautifully-carved government Dispatch Box was covered in strange black pen marks. At the next Prime Ministers Questions they stood watch, and caught the culprit in the act. As Gordon Brown gesticulated wildly with his black marker pen, stabbing at the papers in front of him and missing to hit the wood beneath, the awful truth was clear. The PM was the vandal. […] The boxes were a gift from New Zealand after the rebuilding of the House of Commons following the Second World War. The are modelled on the dispatch boxes in the Australian parliament and are made from a strong, teak-like wood from the rare Puriri tree and were thought to be almost indestructible.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2018 October 28, “The Observer view on the budget and the decade of austerity”, in The Observer, London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2021-01-26",
          "text": "There is a familiar pattern that has come to define Theresa May's premiership. Encouraging rhetoric gets periodically wheeled out: the pledges to ease the burden on the \"just about managing\"; the promises to fight the \"burning injustices\" of social inequality. But then a few weeks later, the chancellor gets up at the dispatch box to deliver a budget or an autumn statement and it's as if those words had never been uttered.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2020 October 19, Daniel Boffey, Lisa O’Carroll, “UK refuses to restart Brexit talks despite EU accepting its demands”, in Katharine Viner, editor, The Guardian, London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2022-03-30",
          "text": "Downing Street has refused to restart Brexit deal negotiations despite Michael Gove performing a U-turn at the dispatch box in which he praised a \"constructive move\" by the EU minutes after declaring the talks \"effectively ended\".",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A box that is placed on a table in a legislative debating chamber and used as a lectern for addressing the legislature."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "politics",
          "politics"
        ],
        [
          "placed",
          "place#Verb"
        ],
        [
          "table",
          "table#Noun"
        ],
        [
          "legislative",
          "legislative"
        ],
        [
          "debating",
          "debating#Noun"
        ],
        [
          "chamber",
          "chamber#Noun"
        ],
        [
          "lectern",
          "lectern"
        ],
        [
          "addressing",
          "address#Verb"
        ],
        [
          "legislature",
          "legislature"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(Commonwealth, politics) A box that is placed on a table in a legislative debating chamber and used as a lectern for addressing the legislature."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "Commonwealth"
      ],
      "topics": [
        "government",
        "politics"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/dɪˈspætʃ ˌbɒks/",
      "tags": [
        "Received-Pronunciation"
      ]
    },
    {
      "ipa": "/dəˈspætʃ ˌbɑks/",
      "tags": [
        "General-American"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "despatch box"
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "box or case with a lock that is used for carrying dispatches and other documents",
      "word": "asiakirjalaatikko"
    },
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "box that is placed on a table in a legislative debating chamber and used as a lectern for addressing the legislature",
      "word": "asiakirjalaatikko"
    }
  ],
  "wikipedia": [
    "House of Commons of the United Kingdom",
    "Parliament of the United Kingdom"
  ],
  "word": "dispatch box"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-03 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). 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.