hot box

See also: hotbox

English

Alternative forms

• hotbox, hot-box

Pronunciation

• Audio (AU):

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Noun

hot box (plural hot boxes)

1. (rail transport) An overheated axle box, bearing and bearing enclosure.
   • 1961 March, “Motive Power Miscellany”, in Trains Illustrated, page 181:

     One of the ex-L. & Y.R. "pugs" displaced by diesels at Bank Hall, No. 51232, is going to Preston for employment on the dock lines there, but when en route on December 31 it ran out of water and also sustained a hot box, as a result of which it was detained at Bank Hall.

Verb

hot box (third-person singular simple present hot boxes, present participle hot boxing, simple past and past participle hot boxed)

1. (slang) To smoke a cigarette vigorously and rapidly.
2. (slang) To smoke a cigarette or drug within a sealed tent in order to heat it up, or in the case of drugs, keep the fumes in.

   Jane hot boxed the tent earlier.

References

• “hot box”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.