Dictionary

mite box en · NOUN

Etymology

From (widow's) mite (“small donation”) + box.

Meanings

1. A box, especially in a church, into which small charitable donations for the needy may be placed; (now commonly) any of a number of cardboard boxes distributed for individual donations.
   • For us, Lent was about the mite boxes we were given in each Sunday school class through sixth grade. 2003, Carol Bonomo, Humble Pie: St. Benedict's Ladder of Humility, page 46:
   • Sister Vincetta, principal of St. Augustine's Elementary School, told us that the pennies in the mite box fed starving children all over China. 2005, Marty Toohey, Bronx Boy: A Memoir, page 76:
   • Even if there had been time for mite boxes they were not such a good idea after all, she corrected herself.[…]It was not a neat and tidy mite box the way Beulah Ball's was; it was a dirty, torn, loose mite box, and so was Jerry's. 1951, Eleanor Estes, Ginger Pye, published 2004, page 20:

Forms

Synonyms

poor box (box for small donations) · alms box (box for small donations)