Word.ws English Dictionary

Chinese boxes

Chinese boxes noun: a set of boxes, of different sizes, each fitting inside the next larger one. Also the plural of Chinese box.

Noun

Chinese boxes pl (plural only)

  1. (plural, plural-only) A set of boxes, of different sizes, each fitting inside the next larger one.
    • 'Continue, my dear friend. It is interesting for me to see this new Bond. Englishmen are so odd. They are like a nest of Chinese boxes. It takes a very long time to get to the centre of them.'1953, Ian Fleming, “The Nature of Evil”, in Casino Royale, London: Pan Books, published 1955, page 144
  2. (plural, plural-only) Something that resembles a set of Chinese boxes, especially in complexity.

Also used as

Chinese boxes is also the plural of Chinese box.

Questions about Chinese boxes

What does Chinese boxes mean?
Chinese boxes means a set of boxes, of different sizes, each fitting inside the next larger one.
What part of speech is Chinese boxes?
Chinese boxes is a noun.

Words near Chinese boxes in the dictionary

  1. Chinese bellflower
  2. Chinese bellflowers
  3. Chinese bezique
  4. Chinese blue
  5. Chinese box
  6. Chinese boxes
  7. Chinese boxing
  8. Chinese boxthorn
  9. Chinese boxthorns
  10. Chinese broccoli
  11. Chinese Buddhism

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Chinese boxes (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.

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Cite this entry: “Chinese boxes.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/chinese_boxes. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.