squeeze box
/ˈskwizbɑks/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.91 in modern English
37
Scrabble Score
10
Letters
1
Syllables
8
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A container that fits tightly around an animal to immobilize it for medical treatment, transportation, etc.
noun
Synonym of hugbox (“a therapeutic device”).
Example Sentences
- "Mama's got a squeeze box she wears on her chest. / From when Daddy comes home, he never gets no rest. / Because she's playing all night, and the music's all right."
- "(Pause. peter picks up his squeeze box.) / peter I sing with this. / george A concertina. / peter No, it's a squeeze box. Can you play it? / george I love music, but can't play a thing."
- "Like the "concertina oompah" phase of the Dutchman style, the Slovenian polka sound emphasizes skill with a squeezebox."
- "Intoxicating, the cheap Moroccan wallets, squashed and flattened in their elasticated dozens, which he eased apart like squeeze-boxes, releasing their scent of oxhide, of urine, of all the dyes and spices of the kasbah."
- "It [Serenade for Winds in B Flat Major by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart] started simply enough: just a pulse in the lowest registers – bassoons and basset horns – like a rusty squeezebox. It would have been comic except for the slowness, which gave it instead a sort of serenity. […] But the squeezebox went on and on, and the pain cut deeper into my shaking head, until suddenly I was running, dashing through the side door, stumbling downstairs into the street, into the cold night, gasping for life."
- "Squeezeboxes are essential instruments in most polka traditions, especially the button accordion, the piano accordion, and the Chemnitzer concertina. […] Manufacture and sale of squeezeboxes made the instruments widely accessible at a time when polkas were all the rage. The squeezebox-polka association remains. A majority of polka bands use an accordion or concertina."
Etymology
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈskwizbɑks/
- British English: /ˈskwiːzbɒks/