An icebox was a wooden cabinet used to keep food cold before electric refrigerators were invented. Inside the icebox sat a large block of ice, usually in the top compartment, and the ice's coldness would flow downward to chill the food stored below. Families would buy fresh ice from an iceman who delivered it door to door, and the ice would slowly melt over several days until it needed replacing.

Iceboxes were common in American homes from the 1800s through the 1930s. They weren't as convenient as modern refrigerators: you had to remember to empty the drip pan underneath, where melted ice collected, and the ice only kept things cool, not frozen. Still, iceboxes were a huge improvement over having no way to preserve food at all.

Today, some people still call their electric refrigerator an icebox out of old habit, even though no ice is involved. If your grandparents or great-grandparents talk about putting something “in the icebox,” they probably just mean the fridge. The word reminds us that the convenient appliances we use every day were once luxury items that required regular deliveries and constant attention.