I'm nearly certain the grandparent meant "germanism" in the sense of "from a Germanic language", as opposed to "from the modern German language".

Nonetheless, that is false — a quick etymology lookup reveals that it came into Old English from Late Latin buxis, itself from Greek pyxis from pyxos.

"Ox" [pl. "oxen"], on the other hand, comes from Old English supposedly through Proto-Germanic; similar forms are found throughout Germanic languages, c.f. Old Norse oxi, Old Frisian oxa, Middle Dutch osse, German Ochse, Gothic auhsa.

Oh ****, sorry. It looked like you were replying to the grandparent in my email app (RSS feed + loads full page); the parent was hidden. *hangs head in shame*