tickey box

English

Alternative forms

• tickey-box
• ticky box
• ticky-box

Etymology

From tickey, obsolete South African slang for a threepenny coin (the cost of a payphone call at the time of the term's origin), and box.^[1]

Noun

tickey box (plural tickey boxes)

1. (South Africa, slang) A payphone.
   • 2002, Michiel Heyns, The Children's Day, Jonathan Ball Publishers (2002), ISBN 9781868421251, page 81:

     […] He phones his mother in Hopetown every afternoon from the tickey box in the hostel.'

References

1. ^ Jonathan Green, Cassell's Dictionary of Slang, Weidenfeld & Nicolson (2005), ISBN 0304366366, page 1435