outbox

Pluraloutboxes

Formsoutboxes, outboxing, outboxed

1. 1
   nouncountable

   A digital folder where outgoing email messages are stored until they are transmitted.

   The email lingered in her outbox because the mail server was down.

   Messages queue in the outbox and send automatically once a connection is restored.

   Oppositeinbox

   Note

   Email borrowed the office tray's name along with its job, just as the paper outbox held letters awaiting the courier. In most email clients it is a holding area rather than an archive. A message sits there only until the program hands it to the mail server, and then it moves to the Sent folder. Anything still in the outbox has not actually gone anywhere yet.

2. 2
   nouncountable

   A container holding papers and documents to be transmitted to others, usually by mail.

   Memos piled up in the outbox until the courier collected them each afternoon.

   He placed the invoice in his outbox for the morning mail run.

   Similarout-tray

   Oppositeinbox, in-tray

   Note

   Two words share this spelling, and they are built differently. This one is a plain compound of out and box: a box for what is going out. The boxing verb instead takes the prefix out-, meaning 'do better than'. Their inflections collide too. Outboxes is both the plural of this noun and the verb's third-person present, so only context separates a stack of trays from a fighter's win.

3. 3
   verbtransitive

   To box more skillfully than an opponent, winning the exchanges in a bout.

   He outboxed the defending champion to claim the belt.

   Smaller fighters sometimes outbox taller opponents by staying mobile.

   Similaroutpoint, outfight

   Note

   A ring term that always takes the beaten opponent as its object: you outbox someone, and the verb is not used on its own. It praises craft over force. The fighter who outboxes a rival has scored with more clean blows while slipping the return fire, which is different from simply overpowering them. Its surpassing out- is what sets it apart from the office tray.

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