Word.ws English Dictionary

thunder-box

thunder-box is the alternative form of thunderbox.

Meaning of thunderbox

Noun (1)

thunderbox (plural thunderboxes)

  1. (slang) A chamber pot enclosed in a box; a portable commode.
    • True, our cash would run out, but Charleton wouldn't let us starve. He'd put us into shorts, and we should wash the dishes and clean the thunder-boxes and take out guests for walks.1939 March, W[ystan] H[ugh] Auden, Christopher Isherwood, “Travel-diary. Chapter 7.”, in Journey to a War, London: Faber & Faber […], →OCLC, page 182
  2. (Australia, UK, broadly, slang) Any lavatory or toilet, especially a rudimentary outdoor latrine or toilet, or an outhouse.
    • Meantime the ICE [Institute of Consumer Ergonomics] experts are poring over their photographs, and making measurements, which, presumably, will go into a computer, and out will come the specification for the perfect thunderbox.1974 June 13, Donald Gould, “A Groundling’s Notebook: Ice Waterloo”, in Bernard Dixon, editor, New Scientist, volume 62, number 902, London: IPC Magazines, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 708, column 2
  3. A box of metal balls which is shaken to create a thunder sound effect.
    • [T]wo articles, both indispensibly necessary to a theatre, are not blundered, viz. a property room, and thunder box!—no they are omitted altogether!!1806 September, Argus [pseudonym], “Provincial Drama, &c.”, in The Monthly Mirror: Reflecting Men and Manners. […], volume XXII, London: […] J. Wright, […] [a]nd published by Vernor, Hood, and...
    Synonyms:
    thunder run

Noun (2)

thunderbox (plural thunderboxes)

  1. (obsolete) A blunderbuss; also, a cannon.
    • In the year 1346, at the battle of Crecy, the engliſh uſed a ſort of cannons, which were then called thunder-boxes.1800, Gerhard Ulrich Anthony Vieth, “Gunpowder”, in [anonymous], transl., The Pleasing Preceptor; or Familiar Instructions in Natural History and Physics, […], volume I, London: […] [F]or G. G. and...

Forms of thunder-box

pluralthunder-boxes

Questions about thunder-box

What is thunder-box the alternative form of?
Thunder-box is the alternative form of thunderbox.

Words near thunder-box in the dictionary

  1. thunder thighs
  2. thunder tube
  3. thunder tubes
  4. thunder word
  5. thunder words
  6. thunder-box
  7. thunder-boxes
  8. thunder-cloud
  9. thunder-drum
  10. thunder-drums
  11. thunder-gust

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: thunder-box (page history and authors); thunderbox (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: “thunder-box.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/thunder-box. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.