Hello, you have come here looking for the meaning of the word
pepperbox. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
pepperbox, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say
pepperbox in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word
pepperbox you have here. The definition of the word
pepperbox will help you to be more precise and correct when speaking or writing your texts. Knowing the definition of
pepperbox, as well as those of other words, enriches your vocabulary and provides you with more and better linguistic resources.
English
Etymology
From pepper + box.
Noun
pepperbox (plural pepperboxes)
- A pepper shaker.
- (firearms) A repeating firearm with three or more barrels grouped around a central axis.
- A buttress at one side of the court in the game of fives.
- (architecture) A tower capped by a cupola, looking similar to a giant pepper shaker.
1861, Elizabeth Gaskell, The Grey Woman:Large, stately, and dark was its [the château's] outline against the dusky night-sky; there were pepper-boxes and tourelles and what-not fantastically going up into the dim starlight.
- (architecture, slang, chiefly in the plural) Any of the buildings of the Royal Academy and National Gallery in Trafalgar Square, London, having cupolas on the roof.
1887, Charles Mackay, Through the Long Day: Or, Memorials of a Literary Life, page 113:I also remember the old Royal Mews that stood on the site of the present trumpery National Gallery, with its too suggestive pepper-boxes; […]
2012, Edward Verrall Lucas, Highways and Byways in London:Its architect, Wilkins, had the misfortune to be chosen to erect our much-abused National Gallery building, with its condemned "pepper-boxes" of cupolas; […]
References
- (buildings in London): 1873, John Camden Hotten, The Slang Dictionary