sandbox
sandbox Lexical Profile
sandbox Game Scores & Validity
• noun
North American A shallow box or enclosed area filled with sand in which children can play.
"The toddlers spent the entire morning building castles in the backyard sandbox."
An isolated testing environment in a computer system in which new or untrusted software or code can be run securely without affecting the rest of the network or application.
"Before deploying the update to the main server, the developers tested the new features in a virtual sandbox."
A style of video game or a mode within a game that allows players to roam freely and interact creatively with a virtual world without linear goals or strict rules.
"Unlike story-driven adventures, this simulation functions as an open-ended sandbox where players design their own cities."
A container on a railway locomotive holding sand that can be dropped onto the rails in front of the driving wheels to improve traction on wet or steep tracks.
"The engineer released grit from the locomotive's sandbox to keep the heavy wheels from slipping on the icy grade."
• verb
To isolate a program, file, or piece of code inside a restricted virtual environment so it cannot alter or damage the host system or network (in computing).
"Modern web browsers automatically sandbox each open tab to prevent malicious scripts from accessing local files."
• Rhymes for sandbox
• Nearby Words
Word Origin & Etymology
A transparent English compound of 'sand' and 'box', first attested in the mid-19th century for railway locomotives and later adopted in the late 19th century for children's play areas; the computing sense emerged in the 1990s as a metaphor for a safe, enclosed space for experimentation.