bandbox

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a lightweight box, originally for neckbands and later especially for hats or other delicate clothing

   She lifted the bonnet from its bandbox and brushed the ribbon smooth.

2. 2
   noun

   US informal: a small venue, especially a baseball park in which home runs are relatively easy to hit

   With its short outfield fences, the old stadium was known as a bandbox.

3. 3
   adj

   extremely neat, trim, or fresh in appearance

   The bandbox hotel looked newly painted and meticulously ordered.

From band + box. In the seventeenth century a band could be a large linen neckband or ruff, and a bandbox was the light box made to store it. The box later held hats and other clothing. Its small size and the crisp appearance of items just removed from it produced the baseball-park sense and the adjective meaning 'exquisitely neat.'

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