boxmann.
/ˈbɒksman/, /ˈbɒksmən/, U.S. /ˈbɑksˌmæn/, /ˈbɑksmən/ΚΠ
1631 T. Brewer Life & Death Merry Deuill Edmonton sig. F2v He tooke an empty Can..tyed it to the end of a long string, and put it out at his chamber window, where it hung dangling like the poore mens boxe at Ludgate, & he himselfe like ye bawling box man, stood.., crying for the Lords sake..good people, pitty a poore prisoner.
1700 E. Ward Metamorphos'd Beau 9 Nor was there ever greater heats and animosities, at Guild-Hall, in making of Parties for the Election of a Lord Mayor, than there is in this Puny-Colledge, in the choice of a Box-man.
1867 Norfolk Chron. & Norwich Gaz. 21 Dec. 2/3 The prisoners in the city gaol return their grateful thanks to their kind benefactors for their donations of provision, collected by the box-man for their relief.
2. A person who carries a box; spec. a porter or (in early use) a commercial traveller. Now rare.
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1855 W. Knighton Trop. Sketches I. viii. 158 The box-man, once squatted on the floor of the apartment, in the midst of his wares..exhibits novelty after novelty.
1866 ‘G. Eliot’ Felix Holt II. xxviii. 193 Accommodation for narrative bagmen or boxmen.
1914 Raleigh (N. Carolina) Christian Advocate 4 June 4/2 Our boxmen were busy tying up their boxes, getting them into position to begin the journey.
1948 M. E. Brunk Econ. Study Celery Marketing i. 54 The box man can then pick up the four crates by grasping them through the slats in the bottom of the crates.
3. U.S. Criminals' slang. A person who breaks open locked safes, or decodes their combination locks; a safe-cracker.
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1891 Muskogee (Indian Territory) Phoenix 16 Apr. A safe blower is a ‘peter man’, ‘box man’, or ‘iron worker’, formerly called ‘gopher blowers’.
1904 H. Hapgood Autobiogr. Thief (U.K. ed.) vi. 120 He was one of the most successful box-men (safe-blowers) in the city.
1926 J. Black You can't Win ix. 104 Shorty was one of the patricians of the prison, a ‘box man’ doing time for bank burglary.
2010 S. Hamilton Lock Artist ii. 8 If you wanted to do this clean, then you needed a boxman to get you into that safe.
4. U.S. colloquial. A person who supervises a game of craps. Cf. box n.2 2c.
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society > leisure > entertainment > pastimes > game > games of chance > [noun] > gambling house employee
boxman1913
1913 Chicago Tribune 24 Jan. 2/3 Every hour Woodson or Stockton comes into the playing room and takes the rakeoff from the box-men.
1985 N. Pileggi Wiseguy 26 The card games had professional dealers and the crap games had boxmen and stickmen, just like regular casinos.
2015 Times Colonist (Victoria, Brit. Columbia) (Nexis) 2 Oct. b8 If you have a dirty inside person, he can slide a bet to the boxman and then just pay out whatever the [dice] roll is.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, March 2021; most recently modified version published online December 2021).
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n.1631