“Box” is a Latin Word

A word that seems so typically English as “box” actually originates in Latin...

A word that seems so typically English as box actually originates in Latin, which also gave its descendants in the Romance languages and, of course, in Spanish.

In Latin there was a plant called buxus. It is easy to see the similarities between these words; also, that the boxes were initially made mostly of wood. In fact, it was common to use boxwood to make boxes, especially for medicines and ointments; these boxes were called buxis or even their Greek version pyxis, from πυξίς.

By the way, here we should talk about Pandora’s box, which is a slip of Erasmus of Rotterdam when he translated Hesiod from Greek into Latin, as he confused πίθος ‘jar, vessel (made of clay, ceramic, etc.)’ with πυξίς ‘box’. Since then, what is properly Pandora’s jar has been perpetuated.

How about Spanish? And caja?

It is now an ancient word in Spanish that is no longer in use, but there was the word bujeta (or buxeta) with exactly this origin and meaning.

Anyway, let’s look at the usual word for this concept: caja. It comes from the Latin capsa, which could have the same meaning, although it referred especially to cylindrical containers (for example, for storing rolls). It is no coincidence that its diminutive gives the English “capsule,” with its prototypically cylindrical shape.