sandbox

Definitions

A box or hollow area filled with sand for children to play in.

A restricted environment or software area in which new or untested programs can be run securely without affecting the host system.

A test environment that isolates changes from a production or live environment.

Examples

The children spent the entire afternoon building elaborate castles in the backyard sandbox.

The software developers created a secure sandbox environment to test the new application without affecting the live database.

Synonyms

play area sand pit testing environment controlled space isolated system experimental zone

Antonyms

production environment live system real world unrestricted area public domain