Word.ws English Dictionary

thunderboxes

thunderboxes is the plural 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 thunderboxes

alternative formthunder-boxes
alternative formthunder boxes

Questions about thunderboxes

What is thunderboxes the plural of?
Thunderboxes is the plural of thunderbox.

Words near thunderboxes in the dictionary

  1. thunderbolting
  2. thunderbolts
  3. thunderboomer
  4. thunderboomers
  5. thunderbox
  6. thunderboxes
  7. thunderbug
  8. thunderbugs
  9. thunderburst
  10. thunderbursts
  11. thunderclap

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: thunderboxes (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: “thunderboxes.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/thunderboxes. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.