Other forms: boxers
A boxer is somebody who fights with padded gloves as a sport. A professional boxer, an amateur boxer, the boxer retired.
Boxers are grouped by weight, and moving up a division is a serious decision. Boxer is also a breed of dog — short-coated, square-headed and named for the way it uses its front paws. Boxers or boxer shorts are loose underwear, named after the shorts fighters wear. Note that boxer, boxing and box in this sense come from box meaning a blow, which is a separate word from the container.
1nounboxerSomebody who fights with padded gloves as a sport.
“The boxer retired at about thirty-four and came back twice.”
2nounshortA short-coated dog of a square-headed breed.
“The boxer next door barks at about four in the morning.”
boxer is a fighter or a dog breed.
The verb box, meaning to strike, appeared in Middle English with no clear ancestor, and it is unrelated to box the container. The dog and the underwear are both named from the sport.
Middle English
box
English
box
English, today
boxer
From box + -er. box comes from Middle English box. From Middle English box (“container, box, cup”), from Old English box (“box, case”), from Proto-West Germanic buhsā (“box”) from Latin buxis (“box”), Latin pyxis (“small box for medicines or toiletries”), of uncertain origin; compare Ancient Greek πυξίς (“box or tablet made of boxwood; box; cylinder”) and πύξος (“box tree; boxwood”). a doublet of piseog and pyx and pyxis. Cognate with Middle Dutch bosse, busse (“jar; tin; round box”) (modern Dutch bos (“wood, forest”), bus (“container, box; bushing of a wheel”)), Old High German buhsa (Middle High German buhse, bühse, modern German Büchse (“box; can”)), Swedish bössa (“box”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA