subs. (American).—A Confederate nickname for vessels of the ‘Monitor’ type; first applied during the Civil War [1860–65]. Cf., TINCLADS (q.v.).
1871. DE VERE, Americanisms, p. 335. The great inventor has not made it known what induced him to choose the name [‘Monitor’]: hence etymologists have evolved it out of their inner consciousness that he must have borrowed it from Gray’s Monitor Dracæna, a large lizard covered with impenetrable armour. Irreverent Confederates called the hideous-looking vessels CHEESE-BOXES, and apparently one designation is, etymologically, though not æsthetically, as good as the other.
