Definition

Noun: 1. A container for shoes: An oblong, typically rectangular box, often made of cardboard, designed to hold and store a pair of shoes. 2. A compact, rectangular space: A structure, room, or compartment that is small, cramped, and rectangular in shape, resembling the size and proportions of a shoebox.

Usage Examples

• The new sneakers came in a bright red shoebox.
• She kept all her old photographs stacked in shoeboxes in the closet.
• (Figurative) Their first apartment was a tiny shoebox of a room in the city center.
• (Figurative) The architect criticized the modern housing development for being full of identical shoebox buildings.

Advanced Usage

• "to live in a shoebox": An idiom meaning to live in a very small and cramped apartment or house.
  • When I first moved to the city, I could only afford to live in a shoebox.

Variants and Related Words

• Shoebox-sized (adj): Having the small dimensions of a shoebox.
  • He built a shoebox-sized model of the house.
• Shoebox unit (n): A term sometimes used in real estate to describe a very small apartment.

Synonyms

• Container (for the literal meaning).
• Cubbyhole, cubicle, cramped space (for the figurative meaning).

Related Idioms

• No room to swing a cat: Another idiom for describing a very small space.
• Boxed in: Feeling trapped or confined in a small space.

Noun

1. an oblong rectangular (usually cardboard) box designed to hold a pair of shoes
2. a structure resembling a shoebox (as a rectangular building or a cramped room or compartment)