"blue box" meaning in English

See blue box in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: blue boxes [plural]
Head templates: {{en-noun}} blue box (plural blue boxes)
  1. (chiefly British and Canada) A blue container used for the collection of household waste (such as tin cans and newspapers) for recycling by a municipal authority. Tags: British, Canada
    Sense id: en-blue_box-en-noun-T0ey~3X0 Categories (other): British English, Canadian English
  2. (historical, telephony) An electronic device used to bypass payment on a tone pulse telephone system. Tags: historical Coordinate_terms: violet box
    Sense id: en-blue_box-en-noun-H7AgQvPE Categories (other): Telephony Topics: communications, electrical-engineering, engineering, natural-sciences, physical-sciences, telecommunications, telephony
  3. (informal, US, meteorology) A "tornado watch" notification category. Tags: US, informal
    Sense id: en-blue_box-en-noun-EQI6pwg7 Categories (other): American English, Meteorology, English entries with incorrect language header, English links with redundant wikilinks, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 32 20 46 2 Disambiguation of English links with redundant wikilinks: 30 28 38 4 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 33 14 50 3 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 33 13 51 3 Topics: climatology, meteorology, natural-sciences
  4. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see blue, box. Hypernyms: box
    Sense id: en-blue_box-en-noun-eVHynDyh

Inflected forms

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "blue boxes",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "blue box (plural blue boxes)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "British English",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Canadian English",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A blue container used for the collection of household waste (such as tin cans and newspapers) for recycling by a municipal authority."
      ],
      "id": "en-blue_box-en-noun-T0ey~3X0",
      "links": [
        [
          "container",
          "container"
        ],
        [
          "collection",
          "collection"
        ],
        [
          "household",
          "household"
        ],
        [
          "waste",
          "waste"
        ],
        [
          "tin can",
          "tin can"
        ],
        [
          "newspaper",
          "newspaper"
        ],
        [
          "recycling",
          "recycling"
        ],
        [
          "municipal",
          "municipal"
        ],
        [
          "authority",
          "authority"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(chiefly British and Canada) A blue container used for the collection of household waste (such as tin cans and newspapers) for recycling by a municipal authority."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "British",
        "Canada"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Telephony",
          "orig": "en:Telephony",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "coordinate_terms": [
        {
          "word": "violet box"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              128,
              136
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "1998 September, Gary Wolf, “The World According to Woz”, in Wired, archived from the original on 10 Aug 2011:",
          "text": "This was before Wozniak—known among the cognoscenti as Woz—almost woke up the Pope by calling the Vatican on his famed illegal \"blue box,\" before he invented the Apple II and helped launch the personal computer industry, and before he gave up his brilliant engineering career and became a public school teacher.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "An electronic device used to bypass payment on a tone pulse telephone system."
      ],
      "id": "en-blue_box-en-noun-H7AgQvPE",
      "links": [
        [
          "telephony",
          "telephony"
        ],
        [
          "electronic",
          "electronic"
        ],
        [
          "device",
          "device"
        ],
        [
          "payment",
          "payment"
        ],
        [
          "tone",
          "tone"
        ],
        [
          "pulse",
          "pulse"
        ],
        [
          "telephone",
          "telephone"
        ],
        [
          "system",
          "system"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(historical, telephony) An electronic device used to bypass payment on a tone pulse telephone system."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "historical"
      ],
      "topics": [
        "communications",
        "electrical-engineering",
        "engineering",
        "natural-sciences",
        "physical-sciences",
        "telecommunications",
        "telephony"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "American English",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Meteorology",
          "orig": "en:Meteorology",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "32 20 46 2",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "30 28 38 4",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English links with redundant wikilinks",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "33 14 50 3",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "33 13 51 3",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "See also: severe thunderstorm watch"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A \"tornado watch\" notification category."
      ],
      "id": "en-blue_box-en-noun-EQI6pwg7",
      "links": [
        [
          "meteorology",
          "meteorology"
        ],
        [
          "tornado",
          "tornado"
        ],
        [
          "watch",
          "watch"
        ],
        [
          "notification",
          "notification"
        ],
        [
          "category",
          "category"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(informal, US, meteorology) A \"tornado watch\" notification category."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "US",
        "informal"
      ],
      "topics": [
        "climatology",
        "meteorology",
        "natural-sciences"
      ]
    },
    {
      "glosses": [
        "Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see blue, box."
      ],
      "hypernyms": [
        {
          "_dis1": "28 0 0 72",
          "word": "box"
        }
      ],
      "id": "en-blue_box-en-noun-eVHynDyh",
      "links": [
        [
          "blue",
          "blue#English"
        ],
        [
          "box",
          "box#English"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "wikipedia": [
    "gray-box testing",
    "white box (software engineering)"
  ],
  "word": "blue box"
}
{
  "categories": [
    "English countable nouns",
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English lemmas",
    "English links with redundant wikilinks",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English nouns",
    "Pages with 1 entry",
    "Pages with entries"
  ],
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "blue boxes",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "blue box (plural blue boxes)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "hypernyms": [
    {
      "word": "box"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "British English",
        "Canadian English"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A blue container used for the collection of household waste (such as tin cans and newspapers) for recycling by a municipal authority."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "container",
          "container"
        ],
        [
          "collection",
          "collection"
        ],
        [
          "household",
          "household"
        ],
        [
          "waste",
          "waste"
        ],
        [
          "tin can",
          "tin can"
        ],
        [
          "newspaper",
          "newspaper"
        ],
        [
          "recycling",
          "recycling"
        ],
        [
          "municipal",
          "municipal"
        ],
        [
          "authority",
          "authority"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(chiefly British and Canada) A blue container used for the collection of household waste (such as tin cans and newspapers) for recycling by a municipal authority."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "British",
        "Canada"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with historical senses",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "en:Telephony"
      ],
      "coordinate_terms": [
        {
          "word": "violet box"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              128,
              136
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "1998 September, Gary Wolf, “The World According to Woz”, in Wired, archived from the original on 10 Aug 2011:",
          "text": "This was before Wozniak—known among the cognoscenti as Woz—almost woke up the Pope by calling the Vatican on his famed illegal \"blue box,\" before he invented the Apple II and helped launch the personal computer industry, and before he gave up his brilliant engineering career and became a public school teacher.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "An electronic device used to bypass payment on a tone pulse telephone system."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "telephony",
          "telephony"
        ],
        [
          "electronic",
          "electronic"
        ],
        [
          "device",
          "device"
        ],
        [
          "payment",
          "payment"
        ],
        [
          "tone",
          "tone"
        ],
        [
          "pulse",
          "pulse"
        ],
        [
          "telephone",
          "telephone"
        ],
        [
          "system",
          "system"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(historical, telephony) An electronic device used to bypass payment on a tone pulse telephone system."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "historical"
      ],
      "topics": [
        "communications",
        "electrical-engineering",
        "engineering",
        "natural-sciences",
        "physical-sciences",
        "telecommunications",
        "telephony"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "American English",
        "English informal terms",
        "en:Meteorology"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "See also: severe thunderstorm watch"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A \"tornado watch\" notification category."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "meteorology",
          "meteorology"
        ],
        [
          "tornado",
          "tornado"
        ],
        [
          "watch",
          "watch"
        ],
        [
          "notification",
          "notification"
        ],
        [
          "category",
          "category"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(informal, US, meteorology) A \"tornado watch\" notification category."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "US",
        "informal"
      ],
      "topics": [
        "climatology",
        "meteorology",
        "natural-sciences"
      ]
    },
    {
      "glosses": [
        "Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see blue, box."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "blue",
          "blue#English"
        ],
        [
          "box",
          "box#English"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "wikipedia": [
    "gray-box testing",
    "white box (software engineering)"
  ],
  "word": "blue box"
}

Download raw JSONL data for blue box meaning in English (3.1kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-12-23 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-12-02 using wiktextract (6fdc867 and 9905b1f). 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.