Etymology

1. Time And Relative Dimension In Space; a fictional time machine and spacecraft, disguised in the form of a British police box, used by the Doctor in the British sci-fi television series Doctor Who.
2. A structure whose interior seems to be larger than its exterior, such as the above.
   • 1990, Norman Bryson, Looking at the Overlooked: Four Essays on Still Life Painting

     What the designers of the Campanian programmes aim for is something like a 'Tardis effect', the dissolving of actual boundaries into a limitless space...

   • 2003, Simon R Green, Something from the Nightside

     A jukebox the size of a Tardis was pumping out an endless stream of hits and classics from the sixties pop scene...

   • 2004, Rhonda Galbally, Just Passions: The Personal is Political

     I sit all by myself in a Tardis-like little room.