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

The company’s shoebox-sized tunable lasers are crucial to ensuring seamless transmission. — Naazneen Karmali, Forbes.com, 7 Aug. 2026

Unlike traditional laboratory-scale systems, the Evergreen-05 fits inside a five-liter enclosure roughly the size of a shoebox. — Aamir Khollam, Interesting Engineering, 6 Aug. 2026

The Nazis tried to take it from Rome during the Second World War, but failed after the head of the Italian Football Federation, Ottorino Barassi, hid it in a shoebox underneath his bed. — Eduardo Tansley, New York Times, 19 July 2026

The footprint is compact for a four-bay model, to be sure; most such designs are lying-down shoeboxes. — John R. Delaney, PC Magazine, 1 July 2026

Word History

First Known Use

1838, in the meaning defined at sense 1