sandbox

noun, verb — 10 senses

sandbox

noun

UK /ˈsænd.bɒks/ · US /ˈsæn(d).bɑks/

Etymology From sand + box.

8 senses
  1. 1A children's play area consisting of a box filled with sand.
  2. 2A box filled with sand that is shaped to form a mould…
  3. 3A container for sand or pounce, used historically before…
  4. 4An animal's litter box.
  5. 5A box carried on locomotives, from which sand runs onto…
  6. 6An isolated area where a program can be executed with a…
  7. 7A page on a wiki where users are free to experiment…
  8. 8The Middle East.
1

Canada, US A children's play area consisting of a box filled with sand.

  • Her children were playing in the sandbox.
2

A box filled with sand that is shaped to form a mould for metal casting.

3

A container for sand or pounce, used historically before blotting paper.

4

An animal's litter box.

5

Rail transport, Railways, Transport A box carried on locomotives, from which sand runs onto the rails in front of the driving wheels, to prevent slipping.

  • For the most part they were small standard gauge 0-6-0 side tanks of the type illustrated, with long tapered chimneys and an unusual feature for the Continent in the shape of domeless boilers, the protuberance just behind the chimney being a sandbox.1941 August, “Notes and News: The Swiss South Eastern Railway”, in Railway Magazine, page 376:
6

Computing, Engineering, Mathematics, Natural sciences, Physical sciences, Sciences An isolated area where a program can be executed with a restricted portion of the resources available.

  • Running a program in a sandbox can prevent it from doing any damage to the system.
7

A page on a wiki where users are free to experiment without destroying or damaging any legitimate content.

8

Government, Military, Politics, War US, Slang The Middle East.

Usually "The Sandbox"

Synonyms
sandpit:
Derived terms
sandbox game, sandbox tree
Related terms
sand dome

sandbox

verb

Etymology From sand + box.

1

Computing, Engineering, Mathematics, Natural sciences, Physical sciences, Sciences To restrict (a program, etc.) by placing it in a sandbox.

  • Although you can use standard JavaScript and AJAX in sandboxed iframe pages to your heart's content, the Facebook Platform places restrictions over the amount of scripting capabilities you can add to the more tightly integrated FBML pages.2011, Richard Wagner, Building Facebook Applications For Dummies:
2

Broadly To brainstorm; to prototype.

  • Their team has been sandboxing some ideas recently.
Derived terms
sandboxer, unsandboxed

Entry derived from the Wiktionary, under licence CC BY-SA 4.0 — list of authors.