coal boxn.

1701 Rules Army in Ireland 31 Wooden Coal-Boxes.

1745 J. Swift Direct. to Servants 87 Leave a Payl of dirty Water, a Coal-box..and such other unsightly Things.

1766 H. Walpole Let. 3 Jan. in Corr. (1961) XXX. 214 Madame de Guerchy has received the coal-boxes.

1834 Chambers's Edinb. Jrnl. 25 Oct. 305/2 ‘Dear me, Betty!’ he would say to the servant girl, and looking now and then into the coal-box in the kitchen, ‘are these coals not done yet?’

1851 Orders & Regulations Royal Engineers (rev. ed.) §19. 97 Cast Iron Coal Boxes have been approved by the Board in lieu of Wood.

1871 H. Cullwick Diaries (1984) 157 Clean'd the hearth & fender on my knees & made the fire up. Fill'd the coalboxes.

1905 F. H. Burnett Little Princess v. 48 She caught at the coal-box and simply scuttled out of the room like a frightened rabbit.

1958 Nursing (St. John Ambulance Assoc.) ii. 18 The grate should be attended to first, and the coal-box replenished if necessary.

1993 S. Stewart Ramlin Rose vi. 56 It were a posh coalbox, pretty-painted, like a deep wooden cradle.

1914 Logansport (Indiana) Jrnl.-Tribune 25 Sept. 1/5 The German howitzer shells..send up columns of greasy black smoke. On account of this they are irreverently dubbed ‘coal boxes’, ‘black marias’, or ‘Jack Johnsons’, by the soldiers.

1914 Illustr. London News 3 Oct. 489 One of the German siege-guns—nicknamed..‘coal-box’.

1916 ‘B. Cable’ Action Front 15 ‘Coal-box,’ said Courtenay hurriedly. ‘Come on. They're apt to drop some more about the same spot.’

1919 Athenæum 11 July 583/2 For high or low velocity German shells, as substitutes for ‘marmite’, the British soldier came out with ‘coalbox’, ‘Black Maria’, ‘Jack Johnson’, ‘heavy stuff’.

1973 T. Pynchon Gravity's Rainbow (1975) i. 79 Reminiscences of Flanders—the coal boxes in the sky coming straight down on you with a roar.

2005 Beaver Dec. 36/2 After six days here, listening to Jack Johnsons and Coal Boxes..bursting and dodging shrapnel, we went to billets.