jawbox

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English

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Alternative forms

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Etymology

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From jaw +‎ box. In old tenements usually placed next to the kitchen window, enabling housewives to talk ("jaw") to each other across the tenement courtyard while doing washing up.

Noun

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jawbox (plural jawboxes)

  1. (Scotland, dated) A tenement sink.
    Synonym: jaw-hole
    • 1983, Bernard MacLaverty, Cal (chapter 3, p.90 in the 1998 Vintage paperback edition)
      After a week he had to accept that he was growing a black beard, not because he wanted one, but because he could think of no way of shaving. There was a jaw-box in the tiny kitchen but no taps.
    • 2022, Liam McIlvanney, The Heretic, page 5:
      She snatches towels from the laundry basket — two, three, four —soaks them at the jawbox sink and lays them along the bottom of the kitchen door.