letterboxn.
/ˈlɛtəbɒks/, U.S. /ˈlɛdərˌbɑks/ 1.
a.
(a) A box to which letters, parcels, and other items are delivered; = mailbox n. 2b, postbox n.1 b.
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society > communication > correspondence > postal services > equipment for sending or delivering mail > [noun] > post- or letter-box
letterbox1727
post1785
box1825
mailbox1885
posting box1886
postbox1954
1727 Daily Post 23 Mar. 1/3 A Letter was taken out of the Letter Box of the House of Commons.., directed to a Member of Parliament, in which was a Bill of Exchange.
1766 T. A. de Lally Tollendal Memoirs 68 These complaints the poor people used to put, by night, into a kind of letter-box, which Count Lally had ordered to be placed at the gate of the fort.
1812 Examiner 30 Nov. 766/1 The libel was found in the letter-box of the Newspaper.
1885 Belgravia Sept. 340 Tom Peekskill..stepped in at the Exchange Club to look in his letterbox. He took out of it a square envelope.
1906 N.Y. Evening Post 15 Nov. 3 Two fires in tenement house letter boxes were set to-day at an early hour.
1925 J. Dos Passos Manhattan Transfer ii. ii. 152 In front of the letterboxes in the shabby hallway.
1991 A. McCarten Modest Apocalypse & Other Stories 126 The letterbox, boasting dual pigeonhole, milk rack and ‘No Circulars’ notice, was ablaze, a flaming torch at the end of the driveway.
(b) Chiefly British. A narrow opening in a door through which post is delivered, typically covered by a hinged flap.
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society > communication > correspondence > postal services > equipment for sending or delivering mail > [noun] > letter-slit on door or wall
letterbox1820
letter-slit1833
letter plate1849
mail slot1892
1820 Christian Reflector Aug. 192 All Communications must be addressed, free of Postage, to the Editors... Letter Box in the Door.
1846 A. Smith Christopher Tadpole (1848) iv. 48 On ringing the bell, the attorney first peered up through the letter-box, to see who it was, and then admitted him.
1890 Times 24 Nov. 4/6 She heard her sister scream, looked through the letter-box in the door, and saw the attack made on her.
1950 D. Thomas Let. 7 Dec. (1987) 774 The local post office, while forwarding some letters decided to slip others into the letter-box so that they might wait, un-opened, on the mat for, so far as they cared, ever.
1985 J. Kelman Chancer (1987) 169 There were no lights on at all and the doors of the lobby were all shut. He flapped the letterbox quite loudly, before returning downstairs.
2005 A. Fine Raking Ashes vi. 86 I heard the rattle of post through the letterbox and onto the mat fell a letter addressed to Mr and Mrs Anderson.
b. A box in which letters are posted or deposited for collection; a pillar box; = mailbox n. 2a, postbox n.1 a.
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society > communication > correspondence > postal services > equipment for sending or delivering mail > [noun] > post- or letter-box > delivery letter-box
letterbox1801
lockbox1854
mailbox1871
postbox1954
1801 Jrnls. Royal Inst. Great Brit. 13 June 21 Two Letter Boxes, one for the General Post, and the other for the Twopenny Post..have been established..at the house of the Institution, and all letters put into them by Proprietors and Subscribers are taken care of, and duly forwarded.
1854 Sci. Amer. 25 Nov. 88/3 It consists of placing pillar letter boxes along the leading thoroughfares, at intervals of half a mile or thereabouts.
1899 Post Office Guide Jan. 18 A Letter may be posted in any Letter Box, from which it will be collected by a Postman and be expressed on reaching the proper office.
1918 C. J. Post & J. H. Neal Some Postal Economics 58 A letter is collected by a postman from a letter box at the corner; it is carried to the Post Office; it is sorted in the Post Office.
1922 T. M. Lowry Inorg. Chem. xxxix. 744 This has a red colour and is used as a pigment under the name of Chrome Red; e.g., for painting letter-boxes.
1986 M. Gee Fire-raiser (1992) v. 74 They ran to the letterbox on the corner. Irene pushed the letter in and they heard it whisper down on top of others.
2. A portable box used to contain correspondence or stationery; a writing box.
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society > communication > writing > writing materials > other writing equipment > [noun] > writing-case
scriptor1474
writing box1474
writing desk1743
writing case1778
letterbox1784
lap desk1937
1784 Edinb. Advertiser 27 July 66/1 It is well known that every diligence has a letter-box for carrying small packets.
1823 Times 19 Feb. 3/5 On our return home, we found the letter-box broken open, and standing open on the table.
1881 Trans. Asiatic Soc. Japan 9 7 Yoshimasa..ordered a letter-box..covered with gold-figured lacquer on a rich ground of nashiji.
1934 M. McLuhan Let. 6 Dec. (1987) 40 When I mentioned the antique shops here she asked me to look for you: a locket, a bracelet or a letterbox.
1970 J. Kilty Dear Love ii. 54 (stage direction) She sits with her letter box in her lap and takes out three letters.
2004 L. Kleypas Again the Magic 388 A mahogany letter box sat open beside her.
3. A person (more fully live letterbox) or place (more fully dead letterbox) through which spies pass information. Cf. letter drop n. (b) at letter n.1 Compounds 2.
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the mind > attention and judgement > enquiry > investigation, inspection > secret observation, spying > [noun] > information exchange
letterbox1940
drop1959
treff1963
post office1965
1940 Strand Mag. Oct. 427/2 The ‘letter-box’ was an oak, which no one on earth would have known for a hollow tree; but hollow it was, and a canister lay within.
1955 J. Thomas No Banners xvi. 144 A circuit had to be organized into leak-proof compartments with letter-boxes or couriers as the only links between them.
1969 D. Hurd & A. Osmond Smile on Face of Tiger vii. 241 The silly girl popped out of the Home Office and they [sc. minutes] were in her usual letter-box within the hour.
1971 ‘R. Petrie’ Thorne in Flesh xv. 187 Aury, apparently, had been a live letterbox for a French security organisation.
1971 N.Y. Times 1 Oct. 18/5 The clip allegedly showed a Soviet official picking up secret material from a ‘dead letter box’.
2006 Sunday Tel. (Nexis) 3 Dec. 1 Agents communicate via ‘live letter boxes’ where secret material is carried by one spy to another or via ‘dead letter boxes’ where the material is left in a covert location.
2007 C. Aubin in B. de Graaf et al. Battleground Western Europe 39 Gerhard Born..acted as a letterbox in the Netherlands for German intelligence networks based in Cologne.
4. Mountaineering and Rock Climbing. A rectangular hole in a rock face.
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society > leisure > sport > types of sport or game > mountaineering or climbing > [noun] > terrain
mauvais pas1816
nose1934
wind-slab1936
letterbox1951
choss1963
traverse line1966
1951 E. Coxhead One Green Bottle iii. 78 The rib bore them upward, perpetually varied,..now parallel cracks, now a groove, now a letter box... The climb above the crux was even more delightful.
1968 P. Crew Encycl. Dict. Mountaineering 79/1 Letter-box, a rectangular hole in a narrow rock ridge; a hole formed by jammed blocks or flakes of rock anywhere on a rock face.
1990 Rock & Ice Mar. 44/1 Begin near the L edge of the face and climb up past a low bolt to a good letterbox.
5. Film and Television. A format for presenting widescreen images on a traditional television or monitor screen while preserving the original aspect ratio of the images, which appear across the middle of the screen with dark bars above and below. Usually attributive, esp. in letterbox format.
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1956 Times 14 June 5/4 The letter-box shape of the wide screen is not always suitable for every scene of every type of film.]
1963 P. Houston Contemp. Cinema iv. 55 Jokes about CinemaScope's letter-box format..vanished into screen history.
1977 Movie Maker 11 1020/3 I've had some unkind things to say about ‘the letter box effect’ of widescreen in a small room.
1993 Coloradoan (Fort Collins) 16 Oct. b7/4 Each movie airs in the usual format, but changes to letterbox whenever there's a song.
1996 Premiere Feb. 90/2 This is one film that really needs the letterbox format—never have so many crucial, scary things happened in the corner of the frame.
2005 Computer Buyer May 33/1 This high-performance display features normal, wide, panoramic and letterbox modes.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, September 2011; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
letterboxv.
/ˈlɛtəbɒks/, U.S. /ˈlɛdərˌbɑks/ 1. transitive. To put (a letter or other mail) into a postbox for delivery. rare.
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society > communication > correspondence > sending items > send items [verb (transitive)] > put in post
to put in1711
letterbox1807
mail1827
post1837
1807 W. Taylor in J. W. Robberds Mem. W. Taylor (1843) II. 187 It is better..that I should letter-box it here.
1906 W. De Morgan Joseph Vance (1908) xlviii. 456 I didn't even post the twenty pounds as I had intended, stopping short just as I was letter-boxing it.
1950 F. J. Hardy Power without Glory xii. 582 Best of all she liked pasting up posters and letter-boxing leaflets at night.
2. transitive. Film and Television. To reproduce or show (a widescreen film) in letterbox format; to transfer (such a film) on to disc in this format.
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1985 J. Menell & D. Hajdu in D. Hajdu Video Review's Best on Home Video 61/1 Manhattan was the first video program to be letterboxed.
1993 Guardian 24 June ii. 5/3 To fit a wide-screen picture on to the nearly-square TV screen..it either has to be trimmed on both sides, or else letter-boxed.
2002 Fangoria Mar. 60/1 They've put out Dario Argento's Sleepless on a full-frame, no-frills DVD after announcing that it would be letterboxed with bonus features.
2006 J. Taylor et al. DVD Demystified (ed. 3) iii. 41 When the picture is letterboxed by the player, the permanent mattes merge with the player-generated mattes.
This is a new entry (OED Third Edition, September 2011; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1727
v.1807