Word.ws English Dictionary

boxing day

Syllables: Box·ing Day/ˈbɒksɪŋ deɪ//ˈbɑːksɪŋ deɪ/

boxing day noun: the day or days (boxing week) following Christmas (December 25th) when stores have large reductions.

Noun (1)

boxing day (plural boxing days)

  1. The day or days (boxing week) following Christmas (December 25th) when stores have large reductions.

Noun (2) capitalized: Boxing Day

Boxing Day (plural Boxing Days)

  1. The day after Christmas; the 26th of December.
    • There are plenty of discounted Christmas items in the Boxing Day sale.
    • Boxing-day in the London streets, and especially a wet Boxing-day, can scarcely fail to afford us some tableaux vivants illustrative of English metropolitan life. […] Christmas-eve of the year about which I write was bright and springlike; Christmas-day dismal, dark, and un-Christmas-like; but...1875, Charles Maurice Davies, “Boxing-day on the Streets”, in Mystic London, or, Phases of Occult Life in the Metropolis, London: Tinsley, →OCLC

Forms of boxing day

pluralboxing days
pluralBoxing Days

Origin of boxing day

From Boxing Day.

Perhaps because of boxes that were placed outside churches to collect special offerings tied to St. Stephen's Day; or because of the old British custom of tradesmen collecting “Christmas boxes” of money or presents on the first weekday after Christmas as thanks for good service, mentioned by the English diarist Samuel Pepys (1633–1703).

Words formed from boxing day

Questions about boxing day

What does boxing day mean?
Boxing day means the day or days (boxing week) following Christmas (December 25th) when stores have large reductions.
What part of speech is boxing day?
Boxing day is a noun.
How do you pronounce boxing day?
Boxing day is pronounced /ˈbɒksɪŋ deɪ/ (UK).
What is the plural of boxing day?
The plural of boxing day is boxing days.

Words near boxing day in the dictionary

  1. boxing and coxing
  2. boxing and locking
  3. boxing bag
  4. boxing bags
  5. boxing clever
  6. boxing day
  7. boxing days
  8. boxing ears
  9. boxing glove
  10. boxing gloves
  11. boxing Harry

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: boxing day (page history and authors); Boxing Day (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-boxing day.wav, LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-Boxing Day.wav, en-au-Boxing Day.ogg.

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