shoebox

noun

shoe·​box ˈshü-ˌbäks 

variants or less commonly shoe box

1

: a box that shoes are sold in

a shoebox full of old photographs

2

: a small space and especially a small living space

The loft, almost an hour from her house by tube, is a shoebox with 18-foot ceilings, white and blue, with odds and ends of mismatched furniture …

—Michael Kimmelman

—often used before another noun

a shoebox apartment

Since commercial real estate was cheaper, art galleries and Off Off Off Broadway theaters could spring up in shoebox storefronts.

—James Wolcott

Examples of shoebox in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Art Recherche Industrie, which oversaw the design, decked out the location with undulating aluminum walls and cabinets in the shape of shoeboxes, with a nod to French and Italian Art Deco design. —Jaden Thompson, Footwear News, 9 July 2025

This time, the complicated plot—perhaps, unnecessarily so—is quite literally hidden in shoeboxes. —Shannon Carlin, Time, 30 May 2025

The scene is indeed quite simple: After yet another argument with her boyfriend Aidan (John Corbett), Parker's Carrie walks into Bergdorf's for some retail therapy when Daniel passes by with a stack of shoeboxes. —Shania Russell, EW.com, 29 July 2025

That 1949 letter, discovered during a 2023 digitization project in Bavaria, pointed curators toward a shoebox of lemon‑yellow fragments that had sat unnoticed for decades. —Chris Stirewalt, The Hill, 18 July 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1838, in the meaning defined at sense 1