| 释义 |
postal, a. (n.)|ˈpəʊstəl|
[a. F. postal, -ale (1836, ‘la convention postale conclue et signée le 30 mars entre la France et la Grande Bretagne’), f. poste post n.2: see -al1.]
A. adj.
a. Of or pertaining to the post; relating to the carriage of mails.
1843Rep. Sel. Comm. on Postage 70 Postal treaties with all the countries in the world. 1844Pres. Tyler to Senate U.S. in Messages of Presid. (1897) IV. 315, I transmit to the Senate..a postal convention between the United States and the Republic of New Granada, signed in the city of Bogota on the 6th of March last. 1848Clough Bothie iv. 235 Not for the will of the wisp..Have even latest extensions adjusted a postal arrangement. 1885Act 48 & 49 Vict. c. 58 §2 (2) Within the limit of the town postal delivery of that office. 1903Times 4 May 11 Great bodies of men, such as postal servants or dockyard servants.
b. in spec. applications: postal ballot, a method of voting by post; also attrib.; postal car, a railway car for the carriage of mails (U.S.); postal card [cf. F. carte postale] = postcard n.; postal clerk, a clerk in a travelling railway post office (U.S.); postal code = postcode; hence as v. trans., to write a postcode on (a letter, etc.); postal currency = postage currency (U.S.); postal draft, † (a) in 1914 the form used at Post Offices for the payment of Navy and Army Separation Allowances, later called ‘allowance form’; (b) a draft or cheque drawn on the Postmaster General, introduced in Jan. 1925 for the payment of National Health Insurance benefits, and later extended to certain Government Departments; postal guide, a handbook of information about the postal service; a post-office guide; postal note, (a) in U.S., an order issued by a post office for any required sum of less than five dollars payable at any other post office; (b) Austral. and N.Z., an order issued by a post office for any required sum and payable at any other post office; postal order, a form of money order issued by a post office of the United Kingdom: it differs from the post-office order, or original postal money order, in being for one of a number of fixed sums, and in being payable at any post office; postal trade, trade in which orders are received and goods dispatched by post; postal tube, trade name for a cardboard tube designed to protect documents, plans, etc., during transmission by post; postal union, a union of the governments of various countries for the regulation of international postage, entered into at Berne on 9 October, 1874; on 1 Feb. 1894, all countries of the world, excepting parts of Asia and Africa and certain islands, were included; postal vote, a vote in an election, on a resolution, etc., submitted on a special form by post; so postal voting vbl. n.
1945Times 25 May 4/1 An elaborate procedure has been devised for checking all service votes so as to eliminate any proxy vote cast on behalf of a service voter from whom a *postal ballot paper is received. 1973A. Broinowski Take One Ambassador i. 15 [The] returning officer for the elections..may be able to put his hand on a postal ballot paper for you. 1974Times 12 Feb. 4/8 Union members should have the opportunity of electing their leaders by postal ballot.
1873New York Her. 24 Apr. 10/4 The *Postal Car Problem... Postal Car and Mail Service on Railroads.
1872Act of Congress U.S. 8 June Stat. XVII. 304 The Postmaster-General is authorized and directed to furnish and issue to the public, with postage-stamps impressed upon them, ‘*postal cards’, manufactured of good stiff paper. 1873Chicago Tribune 17 Apr. 4/1 Postal cards, which have been used with great favor in England and Canada for a long time, will be introduced in this country on the first of next month. 1876C. M. Yonge Womankind xix. 151 Do not come down to slap-dash notes and postal-cards.
1872Act of Congress Stat. XVII. 310 Every route-agent, *postal clerk, or other carrier of the mail shall receive any mail-matter presented to him, if properly pre⁓paid by stamps.
1968Internat. List P.O. (Universal Postal Union) (Eng. ed.) ii. 7 In recent years several countries have worked out *postal codes designed to facilitate the sorting, routeing and delivery of mail. 1978S. Naipaul North of South i. ii. 63 West 11..If we use only the postal code..they mightn't make the connection.
1969P. West Words for Deaf Daughter v. 139 A two-page spread..sent postage-due, incorrectly *postal-coded from some college. 1973Times 17 July 11/5 The Post Office has published a booklet with the postal codes in it.
1862Washington Republican 23 Aug. 2/1 Specimens of the new *Postal Currency were received in this city this morning.., they are now for sale in exchange for specie. 1868S. M. Clark in U.S. Documts. No. 1341 The postal currency was the first government issue representing fractional parts of a dollar, and was commenced in August 1862, and closed in April 1863.
1929Post Office Guide July 144 Remittances are made by certain Government Departments, etc., by means of *Postal Drafts.
1881Whitaker's Almanack 1882, 367/1 *Postal Money Orders [1880 Postal Money Notes]. Unlike post office orders, they are issued for fixed sums.
1883Postal Telegr. & Telephonic Gaz., Would it not be well if the newer issue were styled ‘*postal notes’, as in common parlance?..‘Post-office order’ and ‘postal order’ are too much alike in sound. 1885Victorian Year-Bk. for 1884–5 481 Postal notes were first issued on the 1st January, 1885. 1926Austral. Encycl. II. 318/1 In 1893 [in New South Wales] an inland and intercolonial parcels post was established and the postal-note system introduced. 1962J. R. Bernard in Southerly XXII. ii. 98 A number of words compounded from standard words and attracting to themselves specific meanings are not treated at all in the dictionary. Among them are bin-boy, bushfire, postal note, [etc.]. 1973Bulletin (Sydney) 25 Aug. 3 Enclosed please find my cheque/postal note.
1883*Postal order [see postal note]. 1899Daily News 23 June 8/5 Judge Emden said that..he had no difficulty in coming to the conclusion that a postal order was not a negotiable instrument. 1916A. Huxley Let. c 12 July (1969) 106 Business first{ddd}this postal order, is not for you{ddd}au contraire, for me. 1974Encycl. Brit. Macropædia XIV. 887/1 Postal orders were introduced in 1881.
1902Encycl. Brit. XXV. 99/2 What is called in England ‘*postal trade’, and in America ‘mail order business’, is growing very rapidly.
1894Country Gentlemen's Catal. 166 Postal Pockets..Direction Labels, *Postal Tubes.
1875(Inscription) Foreign Post Card for countries included in the *Postal Union. One Penny Farthing. 1876Brit. Postal Guide 1 Jan., List of countries..comprised in the Postal Union.
1945Times 25 May 4/1 There will be some inevitable duplication of *postal and proxy votes. 1955Times 11 May 14/4 Ministers in Argyll, who have been called to attend the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in Edinburgh during the time they should vote in the general election, have been refused postal votes. 1971Oxf. Univ. Gaz. 18 Feb. 671/2 More than fifty members of Congregation have required a postal vote on the resolution. 1974Times 15 Jan. 2/6 An individual can claim a postal vote so long as he has moved from one local authority area to another.
1945Times 25 May 4/1 Before these arrangements were made for postal voting by members of the forces a high proportion of them had appointed proxies. 1974Times 15 Jan. 2/6 If an election is called..all claims for postal voting must be filed..a fortnight before election day.
B. as n.
a. U.S. colloq. Short for postal card; also for postal note (Cent. Dict. 1890).
b. Short for postal car, postal (i.e. mail) train.
1871W. Drysdale Let., I have already, by postal,..acknowledged receipt of your late favour. 1889Anthony's Photogr. Bull. II. 193 To furnish the secretary with postals to notify the members and the press of the date of meeting. 1891Ann. Rep. Postm.-Gen. Washington 583, 2 daily lines of 50-foot postals [postal railway carriages] superseding 2 lines of 40-foot. 1906The Missionary (U.S.) June 249/1 The circular letter, with return postal, sent out the middle of April.
▸ U.S. colloq.With reference to several recorded cases in which employees of the U.S. Postal Service have shot at their colleagues.to go postal: to behave in a violent or frenzied manner, esp. as the result of stress; spec. to shoot at one's colleagues, esp. randomly. Freq. in weakened sense: to get very angry, to fly into a rage.
1993St. Petersburg (Florida) Times (Nexis) 17 Dec. The symposium was sponsored by the U.S. Postal Service, which has seen so many outbursts that in some circles excessive stress is known as ‘going postal’. 1994A. Heckerling Clueless (Green Rev. pages) 11 Cher. You get your report card? Dionne... Yeah, I'm toast, you'll never see me out of the house again. How'd you do? Cher. God, I totally choked. My father's going to go postal on me. 1997N.Y. Mag. 22 Dec. 85 Ben Stone (Michael Moriarty), after a bipolar switch to a career as an ACLU attorney specializing in First Amendment cases, goes postal and blows away two assistant U.S. Attorneys outside the federal courthouse. 1999New Yorker 27 Sept. 43/2 A man two seats away ‘went postal’ when the battery on his cell phone gave out. A heavyset passenger had to sit on the man until the train finally pulled into Grand Central. 2001Brill's Content Apr. 67/1 Those adjustments [i.e. lay-offs]..were..accomplished in some instances by having guards escort employees immediately out of the building because..Johnson..feared they might ‘go postal’. |