Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A box with a perforated lid, for sprinkling pounce, or for holding perfumes.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Compare French poncette.

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Examples

  • Yet, hold! let me first take my pouncet-box, for these fevers spread like an infection.

    The Talisman 2008

  • Thus speaking, Sir Piercie Shafton knelt down, and most gracefully presented to the nostrils of Mary Avenel a silver pouncet-box, exquisitely chased, containing a sponge dipt in the essence which he recommmended so highly.

    The Monastery 2008

  • Hotspur's picture of this “popinjay” with pouncet-box in hand, and

    The Man Shakespeare Harris, Frank, 1855-1931 1909

  • "An old pouncet-box, I believe," he informed her, "or possibly it held an ointment for her finger nails."

    The Pit: A Story of Chicago 1903

  • Shakespeare wrote for the public square, not for exhibition in the gallery of some ephemeral school of taste, nor for the private collection of some self-elected critic, who holds a pouncet-box while he applies his little artificial canons of correctness.

    Platform Monologues 1902

  • --- Yet hold! let me first take my pouncet-box, for these fevers spread like an infection.

    The Talisman 1894

  • Hotspur's picture of this "popinjay" with pouncet-box in hand, and

    The Man Shakespeare Frank Harris 1893

  • "An old pouncet-box, I believe," he informed her, "or possibly it held an ointment for her finger nails."

    The Pit Frank Norris 1886

  • We who have come after can stand by the battlefield, pouncet-box in hand, and sniff and sneer as much as we will.

    Lectures and Essays Goldwin Smith 1866

  • Sir _Robert_, a silver pouncet-box [a kind of vinaigrette] filled with scent.

    Joyce Morrell's Harvest The Annals of Selwick Hall Emily Sarah Holt 1864

Comments

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  • pounce

    A powder (especially, the gum of the juniper-tree reduced to a finely pulverized state, or finely powdered pipe-clay darkened by charcoal) inclosed in a bag of some open stuff, and passed over holes pricked in a design to transfer the lines to a paper underneath. This kind of pounce is used by embroiderers to transfer their patterns to their stuffs; also by fresco-painters, and sometimes by engravers.

    Century Dictionary

    to keep inline?

    March 13, 2013