Boxing Nightn.
/ˈbɒksɪŋ nʌɪt/, U.S. /ˈbɑksɪŋ ˌnaɪt/ The night or evening of Boxing Day.
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society > leisure > social event > festive occasion > specific festivities > [noun] > festivities associated with Christmas > Boxing-day or night
Boxing Day1743
Boxing Night1787
box day1987
1787 Proc. Old Bailey 10 Jan. 242/1 I was up stairs there the same night; it was boxing night.
1837 C. Dickens Pantomime of Life in Bentley's Misc. Mar. 296 The most turbulent sixpenny gallery that ever yelled through a boxing-night.
1871 Hood's ‘Comic Ann.’ 59 It was the Saturday before the Monday Boxing Night.
1943 Airflow (Ceylon) Christmas 368/1 An Orderly Sergeant, roused from a convivial ‘sesh’ on Boxing Night.
2010 J. O'Connor Ghost Light (2011) xii. 207 On Boxing Night you might slip across to Fusco's and treat the children to a fish supper.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, March 2021; most recently modified version published online December 2021).
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n.1787