chocolate-box

[ chaw-kuh-lit-boks, chok-uh-, chawk-lit-, chok- ]
/ ˈtʃɔ kə lɪtˌbɒks, ˈtʃɒk ə-, ˈtʃɔk lɪt-, ˈtʃɒk- /

adjective

excessively decorative and sentimental, as the pictures or designs on some boxes of chocolate candy; prettified: decorous, chocolate-box paintings of Victorian garden parties.

Origin of chocolate-box

First recorded in 1900–05

Words nearby chocolate-box

chocolate, chocolate cyst, chocolate milk, chocolate soldier, chocolate tree, chocolate-box, chocolatier, choctaw, choctawhatchee, chog, chogyal

Example sentences from the Web for chocolate-box

  • Not strictly beautiful, perhaps; but then I don't like the chocolate-box sort of woman.

    Plays: Lady Frederick, The Explorer, A Man of Honor |William Somerset Maugham

  • No, mark you, he'd take jolly good care that his sentimentality didn't make him see her as a chocolate-box picture!

    The Twilight of the Souls |Louis Couperus

  • My romance was not in the things of glitter and chocolate-box gaiety, but rather in the dolours and silences of the East.

    Nights in London |Thomas Burke

  • Like that, like that, at any rate, she no longer looked like the picture on a chocolate-box.

    The Twilight of the Souls |Louis Couperus

British Dictionary definitions for chocolate-box

chocolate-box

noun

(modifier) informal sentimentally pretty or appealing