mail ordern.
/ˌmeɪl ˈɔːdə/, U.S. /ˈmeɪl ˈˌɔrdər/ Originally U.S.
a. An order sent to a business by post; an order for goods to be delivered by post.
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society > trade and finance > buying > [noun] > order
special order1547
order1746
mail order1867
line1892
pre-order1957
society > communication > correspondence > letter > [noun] > business or commercial letter
letter of advice1622
business letter1766
mail order1867
forwarding-note1884
1867 Commercial & Financial Chron. 5 26/2 Mail and telegraph orders will receive our personal attention.
1890 Catholic World Mar. A190/1 (advt.) Serges, Merinos, Cashmeres... Special prices to Religious Communities... Mail orders promptly attended to and samples sent.
1932 New Yorker 4 June 7 (advt.) Mail and phone orders filled.
1987 C. Lloyd Year at Great Dixter 17 Mail orders account for perhaps a quarter of the business.
b. The practice or system of buying and selling goods by post.
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society > trade and finance > buying > [noun] > shopping > shopping by specific method
home shopping1874
mail order1906
self-service1913
self-serve1919
comparison shopping1921
teleshopping1944
full-service1978
online shopping1982
1906 S. E. Sparling Introd. Business Organization 318 The mail order is based almost exclusively upon circular advertising.
1964 A. Fiber Independent Retailer v. 55 (heading) Mail order has grown rapidly in recent years.
1992 Pop. Crafts Mar. 63/1 Sold as kits at craft fairs and by mail order.
Compounds
C1. General attributive.
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1906 S. E. Sparling Introd. Business Organization 318 While the mail-order firms employ general publicity, they rely almost exclusively upon circularization.
1916 H. L. Wilson Somewhere in Red Gap v. 175 Hetty Daggett..orders this [skirt] by catalogue,..from the mail-order house in Chicago.
1928 S. R. Hall Mail-order & Direct Mail Selling xx. 373 To build up a successful mail-order business, one must first have or create the article or products that have mail-order possibilities.
1942 W. Faulkner Go down, Moses & Other Stories 167 The negro he was shooting at outed with a dollar-and-a-half mail-order pistol..only it never went off.
1967 Century–Daily Star (Toronto) 13 Feb. 12/3 Among the sheepskin coats from central and eastern Europe (the accepted cliché for western settlement) there was many a mailorder mackinaw from Rexton and Guysborough and Murray River.
1992 N.Y. Times 16 Aug. iii. 4/5 The printing company that supplied dozens of American mail-order houses.
C2.
mail-order bride n. a woman who relocates to marry a man in another region or country (now typically one that is economically more developed) after contact for this purpose through an advertisement or matrimonial agency.Often depreciative or having negative connotations.
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1906 Decatur (Illinois) Herald 17 July 1/2 Mail order bride suited Messner... As the result of an ad in a matrimonial journal Miss Alice Woolsem of Washington Pa and Peter Messner a farmer living north of here met in this city and got married.
2002 Time Out N.Y. 26 Dec. 67/1 Clarke shares her experiences growing up with a stepmom who was a Filipino mail-order bride and a dad who kept an AK-47 in the house.
mail order business n. (a) business transacted by mail order; (b) a business trading by mail order.
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1875 Chicago Tribune 8 July 6/3 Few buyers were present and the ‘mail order’ business also was light.
1897 Sears, Roebuck Catal. No. 104. 579 There was a time when the consumer paid what was asked... [This] is radically changed,—changed by the Mail Order Business.
1939 Fortune Oct. 6/1 (advt.) The great mail order business, and those who sell to them.
1975 ‘W. Allen’ Without Feathers (1976) 184 They abandoned philosophy and went into the mail-order business.
mail order catalogue n. a catalogue of goods available by mail order (originally mail order shopping catalogue).
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society > trade and finance > selling > [noun] > mail-order catalogue
mail order catalogue1888
wish book1933
1888 Chehalis (Washington) Bee 27 Apr. 3/3 A new mail order shopping catalogue..can be had free.
1909 Hampton's Mag. 22 209/1 That's what they call mail-order catalogues on the road.
1989 Which? Aug. 366/1 The torrent of mail order catalogues continues to fall through our letter boxes.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, June 2000; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1867