box (redirected from shoebox)

box, common name for the Buxaceae, a family of trees and shrubs with leathery evergreen leaves, native to the tropics and subtropics of the Old World and to Central America. The boxes (genus Buxus) have been widely introduced to other regions for use as hedge plants and for their wood. Boxwood is close-grained, strong and hard, and polishes well; it is valued for wood engraving, carving, and turning, and for making musical instruments. Pachysandra procumbens, a native American species of an otherwise Asian genus, is a low, creeping herb found in the S Appalachians and cultivated elsewhere as a ground cover. The box family is classified in the division Magnoliophyta, class Magnoliopsida, order Euphorbiales.

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box

In botany, an evergreen shrub or small tree (genus Buxus) of the box family (Buxaceae), best known for the ornamental and useful boxwoods. The family comprises seven genera of trees, shrubs, and herbaceous plants, native to North America, Europe, North Africa, and Asia. The plants bear male and female flowers, without petals, on separate plants. The leathery, evergreen leaves are simple and alternate. Fruits are one- or two-seeded capsules or drupes. Three species of the genus Buxus provide the widely grown boxwood: the common, or English, box (B. sempervirens), used for hedges, borders, and topiary figures; the Japanese box (B. microphylla); and the tall boxwood tree (B. balearica).

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Slang for hardware. A box can be a PC or server or any device, although it is typically one that processes information. For example, a "Unix box" is just another way of saying "Unix computer."

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(computer)

box - 1. A computer; especially in the construction "foo box" where foo is some functional qualifier, like "graphics", or the name of an operating system (thus, "Unix box", "MS-DOS box", etc.) "We preprocess the data on Unix boxes before handing it up to the mainframe." The plural "boxen" is sometimes seen. 2. Without qualification in an IBM SNA site, "box" refers specifically to an IBM front-end processor.