Etymology

A nonstandard plural of box formed by analogy with oxen. While 'ox' forms its plural 'oxen' according to a morphological rule which is no longer very productive, box is usually pluralized by the appending of 'es' to the end of the word, resulting in 'boxes'. Similar examples would be 'fox' -> 'foxes' and 'ax' -> 'axes'. compare 'child' -> 'children'

Noun

boxen

1. Multiple computers (or occasionally a single computer), especially those running UNIX.
   • 1996, Siu Ha Vivian Chu, DEC vt320 → linux boxen in comp.os.linux.networking

     i can't seem to find any how-to regarding connecting a terminal to a linux boxen via parallel port...

   • 2002, Gregory Seidman, serving debian to redhat boxen in muc.lists.debian.user

     Furthermore, it is necessary that all four Linux boxen have the same development environment...