pouncet box

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poun·cet box

(poun′sĭt)

A small perfume box with a perforated top.

[Perhaps alteration of *pounced-box, from pounce.]

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

pouncet box

(ˈpaʊnsɪt)

a box with a perforated top used for containing perfume

[C16 pouncet, perhaps alteration of pounced punched, perforated; see pounce¹]

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

poun′cet box`

(ˈpaʊn sɪt)
n.

a small perfume box with a perforated lid.

[1590–1600; pounce² or pounce³ + -et]

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References in periodicals archive ?

remember Hotspur on the battlefield being so contemptuous of the lord who was taking a pouncet box to his nose when the corpses were smelling too much.

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These elegant things were called pouncet boxes or, in France, cream boxes and the gold and silver ones were used as collateral by Elizabethan men and women against a loan from a money-lender when times grew hard.