- 1玩偶盒（打開蓋子、裡面小人會彈出來的童玩）。
A jack-in-the-box is a children’s toy: a small box, often with a handle you turn, and a figure inside — usually a clown or a little person — sitting on a spring. When the lid flies open, the figure pops out. The fun is the wait and then the jump; little children may laugh or . The name uses Jack the way older English often did: not one real man, but a stand-in name for a small figure. People sometimes stretch it, with a smile, to a person who suddenly appears — “he popped up like a jack-in-the-box” — but the home meaning is still the toy. It is everyday language, mostly around children, toys, and memory of childhood.
jack-in-the-box 是一種小孩玩具：小盒子裡坐著一個小人偶，蓋子一打開，小人就彈出來。好玩的地方在於先等待，然後突然跳出來，所以小朋友常常會笑或嚇一跳。名字裡的 Jack 是老英文常用的說法，泛指一個小人偶，不是真的有一個叫 Jack 的人。
有時候人們會笑著把它拿來形容突然冒出來的人，例如「he popped up like a jack-in-the-box」（他像小人偶一樣突然冒了出來）。不過這個字的本義還是玩具，多半和小孩、玩具和童年回憶有關。
組成Jack (a common man’s name, used for a little figure) + in the box. The toy is literally “a Jack inside a box.”
同家族的字
- jack-o'-lanternsame Jack: a stand-in name, not one particular man
- jack-of-all-tradessame Jack as “ordinary fellow”
原始詞典資料3 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，摘錄並精簡格式，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
jack-in-the-boxnoun
- 1
Children’s toy consisting of a small box from which a male figure pops out unexpectedly after some turnings of a crank.
- "Did you venture to call me a liar?" ("No, sir, no!" shouted the accused, and disappeared like a Jack-in-the-box.)
- “There’s this terrible business to start with. Scotland Yard men in and out of the house like a jack-in-the-box! Never know where they won’t turn up next.”
- 2
historicalA small but powerful kind of screw, used by burglars to break open safes.
- It was possible, from underneath, to use the old jack-in-the-box safe-breaker's tool which lay in his gasman's bag.
- 3
obsoleteA con-man who deceived tradesmen by substituting empty boxes for others full of money.
摘錄自 英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary，已精簡格式；依 CC BY-SA 4.0 授權使用，改動後的內容同樣以此授權提供。