Box Canyon Definition & Meaning

American

British

Etymology

Examples

box canyon American

noun

1. a canyon with steep side walls terminating headwards in a vertical cliff.

box canyon British

noun

1. a canyon with vertical or almost vertical walls

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of box canyon

An Americanism dating back to 1870–75

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Perched 8,750 feet up in a box canyon in the Colorado Rockies, it’s reachable only by twisting roads or a white-knuckle drop into one of the nation’s highest airports.

From Los Angeles Times

Tucked away in a remote Colorado box canyon, the Telluride Film Festival has long leaned into its image as a kind of Brigadoon for cinephiles.

From Los Angeles Times

Picturesque Box Canyon offers a rustic bridge, gentle half-mile ramble, picnics and views of rushing waters through a tall, narrow canyon.

From Seattle Times

They discover the simplicity and warmth of life in a town at the dead end of a box canyon with a year-round population of roughly 300.

From New York Times

But the festival, held in a remote former mining town in a beautiful box canyon in the Colorado mountains, also can be prohibitively expensive to attend and all that talk of “cinema” can be a little off-putting to the unconverted.

From Los Angeles Times

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.