Etymology: < classical Latin buxus (also buxum) box tree, boxwood, object made of boxwood < ancient Greek πύξος box tree, boxwood, of uncertain origin; perhaps a loanword. Compare later bush n.²Similar, or perhaps shared, borrowing is shown by forms in other West Germanic languages, as Old Dutch buks- , buss- (only as an element in place names; Middle Dutch bus- , bux- (in busboem , buxboem ), Dutch buks in buksboom ), Middle Low German bus- (in busbōm ), Old High German buhs (Middle High German buhs , German Buchs ). Compare the Romance reflexes of the Latin word, as Anglo-Norman and Old French buis , bois , bus , etc. (Middle French bois , buix , buys , bouys ; French buis ), Old Occitan bois (Occitan bois ), Catalan boix (13th cent.), Spanish boj (second half of the 13th cent.), Portuguese buxo (1344), Italian bosso (c1300 as busso ). Phonology. The stem vowel o in Old English box (unlike the continental Germanic forms) suggests (relatively later) borrowing of a vulgar Latin form with lowering of u to o . The derivative adjective Old English byxen made of or resembling boxwood (compare boxen adj.) with stem vowel y (if it is not simply analogical after the pattern of gold ~ gylden ) shows i-mutation of u , reflecting the regular development in Latin loanwords of Latin o before i or j to Old English u , and implying borrowing of a Latin derivative adjective in a form (like the noun) with vulgar Latin lowering of the stem vowel from u to o , perhaps the reflex of classical Latin buxeus buxeous adj., combined with -en suffix⁴; compare also post-classical Latin buxinus (adjective), although this is rare and late: 9th cent. in an Irish source, perhaps earlier in an undated glossary. See further D. G. Miller External Influences on Eng. (2012) 69, and compare A. Campbell Old Eng. Gram. (1959) §501 and discussion at Scottish adj. and n. Specific senses. With sense 2 compare the senses of Old English byxen made of boxwood, resembling boxwood (with reference to colour); compare also later Compounds 1a, Compounds 1c. Early attestation in place names. The word occurs early in boundary markers in Anglo-Saxon charter bounds and in place names; compare quot. lOE at sense 1 (in a late copy of bounds to a charter of 931), and also Boxoran, Berkshire (960; now Boxford), Boxewelle, Gloucestershire (1086; now Boxwell).

Etymology: Origin uncertain. Perhaps (i) originally a specific sense of box n.¹ (compare classical Latin buxus, buxum in the sense ‘object made of boxwood’: see box n.¹), probably influenced in sense by (ultimately related) classical Latin pyxis (see below), or perhaps (ii) < classical Latin pyxis (also puxis ) box (see pyx n.¹; in post-classical Latin also buxis (6th cent.: see note)), probably influenced in form by association with box n.¹ Compare early borrowing of classical Latin pyxis or its reflexes into West Germanic languages, as Old Frisian busse, bosse, Middle Dutch busse, bosse (Dutch bus), Middle Low German büsse, busse, Old High German buhsa, puhsa (Middle High German bühse, German Büchse); compare also ( < Middle Low German) Old Icelandic (in late sources) byssa, Old Swedish byssa, bössa (Swedish bössa), Old Danish busse, bysse (Danish bøsse). In the later medieval period the word shows a shared semantic development in the continental Germanic languages (and hence also in the Scandinavian languages) from ‘cylindrical container’ to ‘cannon, gun’.Although it is formally possible that the borrowing of a reflex of classical Latin pyxis would appear as Old English strong masculine or neuter box independently of influence from box n.¹, the fact that early forms of the corresponding loanword in other Germanic languages usually appear with a different gender and stem class (weak feminine jōn -stem; perhaps compare classical Latin buxeus buxeous adj.), with i-mutation of u in the stem vowel, perhaps makes it less likely. Compare discussion of the stem vowel at box n.¹ Conversely, Old English box might well reflect a semantic development of box n.¹ ‘boxwood’ via ‘object made of boxwood’ (a sense attested for its Latin etymon), and thence specifically to ‘(small) box (made of boxwood)’ and to ‘box (made of any material)’, which would in fact parallel the original semantic development of Hellenistic Greek πυξίς , the etymon of classical Latin pyxis (see pyx n.¹). However, the widespread borrowing of pyxis into Germanic languages makes it less likely that such a semantic development would happen entirely independently of pyxis or its reflexes. (The use of boxwood as the preferred material for the carving of small boxes also appears to be more typical of Mediterranean regions.) The etymological connection between classical Latin buxus and classical Latin pyxis was known in antiquity (and hence also later in Anglo-Saxon England; compare e.g. the discussion in Isidore Origines 20.7.3), and the word forms probably influenced each other already in post-classical Latin; compare the variant post-classical Latin buxis (6th cent.). Compare also attested inflected or suffixed forms of the stem of pyxis (oblique stem pyxid- ) with initial b- such as bustea (9th cent.), buxta (9th cent.), buxida (10th cent.), bustia (11th cent.), boxta (12th cent.), bossida (early 14th cent.), and also Old French boiste and its cognates, which derive from such forms (see boist n.). Specific forms. In the plural form boxen (in colloquial use in computing: see sense 5e) apparently originally humorously after oxen, plural of ox n. Specific senses. With sense 2b compare boist n. 1b. In sense 2e probably short for coach-box n. (although attested slightly earlier): see discussion at that entry. In sense 2g after box v.² 5. With sense 8 compare earlier pump box n.