Etymology
The term is attested since 1786, presumably from sales of box seats or "boxes" (private seating areas). The sense of “total sales” is attested from 1904.
A folk etymology is that this derives from Elizabethan theatre, where theater admission was collected in a box attached to a long stick, passed around the audience; compare the "bottle" in Punch and Judy, where money was collected in a bottle. However, first attestation is over a century later (theaters were closed in 1642, the term is recorded 1786, 144 years later), making this highly unlikely.
Read more about this topic: Box Office
Famous quotes containing the word etymology:
“The universal principle of etymology in all languages: words are carried over from bodies and from the properties of bodies to express the things of the mind and spirit. The order of ideas must follow the order of things.”
—Giambattista Vico (1688–1744)
“Semantically, taste is rich and confusing, its etymology as odd and interesting as that of “style.” But while style—deriving from the stylus or pointed rod which Roman scribes used to make marks on wax tablets—suggests activity, taste is more passive.... Etymologically, the word we use derives from the Old French, meaning touch or feel, a sense that is preserved in the current Italian word for a keyboard, tastiera.”
—Stephen Bayley, British historian, art critic. “Taste: The Story of an Idea,” Taste: The Secret Meaning of Things, Random House (1991)