postaladj.n.
/ˈpəʊstl/, U.S. /ˈpoʊst(ə)l/ A. adj.
1. Of, relating to, or connected with the post or mail.
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society > communication > correspondence > postal services > [adjective]
postal1842
1842 Times 30 Sept. 5/6 M. Dubost, one of the superior employés of the French Post-office,..is gone to England to negotiate a new postal treaty.
1869 Bradshaw's Railway Man. 21 187 A better postal and passenger service between London and Kingstown.
1885 Act 48 & 49 Victoria c. 58 §2 (2) Within the limit of the town postal delivery of that office.
1895 ‘M. Twain’ in N. Amer. Rev. Jan. 160 49 Postal service? France is a back number there.
1929 K. B. Stiles Stamps i. 7 A striking illustration of definitives and provisionals is to be found in the postal history of Portugal.
1960 Pract. Wireless 36 298/1 The number of Broadcast Receiving Licences in force at the end of April 1960, in respect of wireless receiving stations situated within the various Postal Regions of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
1977 Evening Post (Nottingham) 27 Jan. 1/4 That is, in this case the law which says that postal workers must not detain or delay any letters in the course of transmission by post.
2005 N.Y. Sun (Nexis) 27 Jan. 15 Postal rates are expected to rise again in the spring of 2006.
2. Conveyed by post; operating or conducted by post.
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1861 Times 20 Mar. 9/2 It is..not very easy, to give the depositor the power of adding to his deposits, or withdrawing them, at any postal Savings-bank in the kingdom.
1886 Cent. Mag. Feb. 626/2 There had been much discussion in America of the subject of postal savings-banks.
1927 Passing Show Summer 47 (advt.) For those learning at home Hugo's Postal Self-Tuition Courses are the only certain way of acquiring languages quickly.
1966 Listener 4 Aug. 183/3 My conclusion is that the Adams's Gambit should prove good value if adopted from time to time in club and postal chess.
1995 New Scientist 14 Jan. 22/2 Lawyers can use the time to decide postal appeals.
B. n.
1. North American colloquial. A postal card. Now historical.
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society > communication > correspondence > letter > card > [noun]
card1596
message card1746
birthday card1797
view card1822
acceptance1837
Easter card1842
wedding-cards1847
comic1860
postcard1869
letter card1870
postal card1870
pc1876
postal1877
note-card1884
photo card1890
greeting-card1898
picture postcard1899
seaside postcard1955
sympathy card1967
1877 Portsmouth (Ohio) Times 21 July Cowards and sneaks, who make charges written on postals and sent open through the mail without their signatures.
1889 Internat. Ann. Anthonys Photogr. Bull. 193 To furnish the secretary with postals to notify the members and the press of the date of meeting.
1930 Publishers' Weekly 31 May 2737/2 The confiscation of dirty picture postals and smut books.
1945 R. P. Feynman Let. 24 May in M. Feynman Perfectly Reasonable Deviations (2005) 62 I miss your letters. Maybe you could get Pop or a nurse to write a postal for you once in a while.
1991 Kaatskill Life Summer 67/1 In the early 1900s, the picture post card hobby became the greatest collectible (and affordable) hobby the world has ever known... These ‘postals’, as early collectors called them, quickly grew in popularity.
2. A postal car or mail train. rare.
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society > communication > correspondence > postal services > person or vehicle that carries letters or mail > [noun] > vehicle or vessel > railway vehicle
mail coach1838
mail train1839
mail car1842
night mail1842
post-office car1851
mail1862
postal car1864
postal1891
1891 Ann. Rep. Postm.-Gen. Washington 583 2 daily lines of 50-foot postals [postal railway carriages] superseding 2 lines of 40-foot.
1976 Railway Mag. Aug. 410/1 We..ran through Preston..exactly the time the Postal was due to stop there.
Phrases
U.S. colloquial. [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. Frequently in weakened sense: to get very angry, to fly into a rage.
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1993 St. 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’.
1994 A. Heckerling Clueless (film script, first shooting draft) (O.E.D. Archive) Green Revised 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.
1997 N.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.
1999 New 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.
2001 Brill'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’.
Compounds
postal ballot n. an arrangement by which votes can be cast by post.
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the mind > will > free will > choice or choosing > expression of choice by some approved method > [noun] > voting by post or when absent
absent vote1850
letter ballot1874
vote-by-mail1880
postal ballot1888
postal vote1903
postal voting1913
1888 Times 20 Jan. 3/1 Mr. John Leighton..proposed a scheme for a postal ballot in place of the present system.
1911 Evening Post (Frederick, Maryland) 14 Jan. 1/1 We propose the immediate use of a preliminary postal ballot by the progressive voters.
1973 A. 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.
1990 Independent on Sunday 18 Feb. 1/4 The Employment Act 1988, governing the conduct of postal ballots, makes it clear that the independent scrutineer must be someone ‘who the union has no reason to believe will carry out his functions incompetently’.
postal car n. originally U.S. a railway car for transporting mail.
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society > communication > correspondence > postal services > person or vehicle that carries letters or mail > [noun] > vehicle or vessel > railway vehicle
mail coach1838
mail train1839
mail car1842
night mail1842
post-office car1851
mail1862
postal car1864
postal1891
1864 N.Y. Times 2 Dec. 4/5 A mail train will leave here.., with a postal car, on which letters can be mailed up to the time of starting.
1868 N.Y. Herald 17 July 5/6 A postal car is attached..to the express trains from New York to Buffalo.
1917 Geogr. Rev. 4 342/2 It..was appointed to consider the routes to be followed in France, the Colonies, and in Allied countries, types of postal car or carrier, [etc.].
2004 SinoCast (Nexis) 13 Aug. The mails are sent to Shanghai for exchange by CAAC planes and then are delivered by regional postal cars to have mails arrive the following day.
postal card n. [compare French carte postale (1872)] = postcard n.
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society > communication > correspondence > letter > card > [noun]
card1596
message card1746
birthday card1797
view card1822
acceptance1837
Easter card1842
wedding-cards1847
comic1860
postcard1869
letter card1870
postal card1870
pc1876
postal1877
note-card1884
photo card1890
greeting-card1898
picture postcard1899
seaside postcard1955
sympathy card1967
1870 Athenaeum 15 Oct. 497/1 A system of postal cards has been established: these are of a certain size—about that of an ordinary envelope, and must not weigh more than three grammes.
1873 Chicago 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.
1950 Chicago Tribune 9 Jan. II. 1/2 Hand-writing experts at county fairs gave exhibitions of writing the Twenty-third Psalm and the Lord's prayer on a postal card.
2003 Birmingham Post (Nexis) 1 Nov. 11 Because postal cards could be mailed for much less than the normal letter rate, they soon became a hit with the general public.
postal clerk n. U.S. a post office clerk.
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1867 N.Y. Times 2 June 1/7 Route agents, railway postal clerks and baggage masters having charge of mails, are to be paid monthly by the Postmasters.
1868 Hornellsville (N.Y.) Tribune 23 July 3/3 The pay of a Postal Clerk.
1900 Congress. Rec. 3 Jan. 641/1 House bill No. 4351, for the reclassification of postal clerks.
1999 Afr. Amer. Rev. 33 456 Jake is unhappily married, reluctantly works as a postal clerk, and seeks gratification with a few co-workers during off-hours.
postal code n. = postcode n.
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society > communication > correspondence > sending items > [noun] > addressing letter > address > postcode
postal code1959
zip1962
zip code1962
postcode1967
1959 Times 15 Jan. 5/2 The Post Office have completed a survey of public opinion to find out whether people will be prepared to use a postal code in addition to the normal address on their correspondence, in order to expedite the handling of mail.
1968 Internat. 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.
1992 Harrowsmith Oct. 46/1 Paradise River, the tiny settlement on the coast of Labrador where I live, seems at first glance to merit both its lyrical name and its postal code, which starts with the letters AOK.
postal-code v. transitive to write a postcode on (a letter, parcel, etc.).
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society > communication > correspondence > sending items > send items [verb (transitive)] > address letter > put postcode on
zip-code1962
postal-code1969
1969 P. West Words for Deaf Daughter v. 139 A two-page spread..sent postage-due, incorrectly postal-coded from some college.
postal currency n. U.S. (now historical) = postage currency n. at postage n.1 Compounds.
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society > trade and finance > money > medium of exchange or currency > paper money > foreign banknotes > [noun] > U.S.
long green1837
wild cat1861
greenback1862
postage currency1862
postage-stamp currency1862
postal currency1862
blueback1863
fractional note1863
greyback1863
yellowback1863
goldback1865
Sherman1892
1862 Washington 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.
1906 ‘M. Twain’ Lett. to Sec. of Treasury 229 25 and 50 cent postal currency.
2002 Columbus Dispatch (Ohio) (Nexis) 5 May 7 g The government replaced them [sc. postage stamps] with low-denomination bills called postal currency that initially mimicked stamps.
postal district n. a district distinguished from others in the region, typically by a set of initials or numbers, in order to make the sorting and delivery of post more efficient.
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1856 Brit. Postal Guide vi. 15 Upon a book thus re-directed to any other postal district in the United Kingdom,..an additional postage is levied of one penny.
1966 J. J. Fuld Bk. World-famous Music Introd. 14 London was divided into postal districts (e.g., W.C.) in 1856... Postal districts in Berlin (e.g., Berlin C) were first established on Sept. 1, 1873.
postal draft n. British (now historical) (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 January 1925 for the payment of National Health Insurance benefits, and later extended to certain government departments.
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society > trade and finance > fees and taxes > grants and allowances > [noun] > separation allowance > form for separation allowance
postal draft1929
society > trade and finance > money > medium of exchange or currency > paper money > promissory notes or bills of exchange > [noun] > postal order
post bill1740
money order1802
post-office order1815
order1846
P.O.O.1856
PO1861
postal note1862
postal order1864
mandat1896
M.O.1909
postal draft1929
1929 Post Office Guide July 144 Remittances are made by certain Government Departments, etc., by means of Postal Drafts.
2001 Birmingham Post (Nexis) 18 June 10 50 Years Ago. A private in the South Staffordshire Regiment..was fined a total of £ 12 yesterday on two charges of forging a National Insurance postal draft.
postal guide n. chiefly North American a handbook of information about the postal service and the areas it serves; a post office guide.
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1851 G. Flagg Let. 16 Jan. in Flagg Corr. (1986) 138 I see by the Postal Guide (which I take) that a Mr Allen Judd of Chicopee Massachusetts has invented an improvement of the pentagraph a very useful instrument for drawing maps.
1965 Demography 2 364/1 Additional sources checked included a list of places incorporated or disincorporated since 1950, the Postal Guide, the Railroad Guide, and other information available in records kept by the Census.
2004 Ottawa Citizen (Nexis) 17 Feb. a11 At no time was the surcharge shown on the customer's receipt, nor were details of its calculation for retail customers given in the postal guide.
postal money order n. = postal order n.
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1871 Times 26 Aug. 4/2 The Convention for the interchange of postal money-orders with Great Britain is to go into effect in the United States Oct. 2.
1881 Whitaker's Almanack 1882, 367/1 Postal Money Orders [1880 Postal Money Notes]. Unlike post office orders, they are issued for fixed sums.
1985 Amer. Jrnl. Bot. 72 U2 Note subscriber's name and address or our invoice number on Postal Money Orders.
postal note n. (a) U.S. now historical, (between 1945 and 1951) a money order issued by a post office in fixed denominations, payable to a named payee at any post office; (b) a note of postal currency; (c) Australian and New Zealand an order issued by a post office for any required sum and payable at any post office.
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society > trade and finance > money > medium of exchange or currency > paper money > promissory notes or bills of exchange > [noun] > postal order
post bill1740
money order1802
post-office order1815
order1846
P.O.O.1856
PO1861
postal note1862
postal order1864
mandat1896
M.O.1909
postal draft1929
1862 N.Y. Times 14 Dec. 3/6 Since no two things are alike..there must be a difference between two postal notes.
1877 Spectator 18 Aug. 1033/2 Mr. Chetwynd's idea is that the postal notes should be issued for sums of 2s. 6d., 5s., 10s., and 20s., at half the present rates for money-orders,—rates which the Committee think too low.
1926 Austral. Encycl. II. 318/1 In 1893 [in New South Wales] an inland and intercolonial parcels post was established and the postal-note system introduced.
1949 Chicago Tribune 11 Dec. iv. 15/1 Send self-addressed envelopes..to the postmaster at Saratoga Springs with a postal note or money order remittance to cover the cost.
1973 Bulletin (Sydney) 25 Aug. 3 Enclosed please find my cheque/postal note.
1994 Stamp Mag. Nov. 153/4 Postal orders. Postal notes, money orders, Bons de Poste, Mandats, related items.
postal order n. a form of money order issued by a post office for the payment of a specified sum to a named payee at any post office; (formerly) such an order for one of a number of fixed sums.
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society > trade and finance > money > medium of exchange or currency > paper money > promissory notes or bills of exchange > [noun] > postal order
post bill1740
money order1802
post-office order1815
order1846
P.O.O.1856
PO1861
postal note1862
postal order1864
mandat1896
M.O.1909
postal draft1929
1864 N.Y. Times 3 Aug. 2/4 The bill to establish a postal order system.
1865 Sci. Amer. 16 Sept. 188/2 The safest way to remit money is by a draft or Postal Order on New York, payable to the order of Messrs. Munn & Co.
1883 Postal 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.
1916 A. Huxley Let. c12 July (1969) 106 Business first... This postal order, is not for you..au contraire, for me.
1989 S. Bedford Jigsaw v. 275 When my own money came in—by international postal order—we reversed roles: I trying to conceal, she trying to get me to fork out.
postal station (a) a station on a post route or road (now historical); (b) a post office; (North American) spec. a subsidiary post office (cf. station n. 5f).
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1846 On Communications between Europe & India through Egypt 58 She [sc. the French Government] cannot exclude other nations from visiting the ports that form her postal stations.
1867 Brit. Q. Rev. Apr. 449 There are between ten and eleven thousand towns and villages in the United Kingdom which contain a postal station.
1879 N.-Y. Times 28 Dec. 5/7 Certain little boxes in all the restaurants,..at the Post Office and at all the postal stations.
1902 A. H. S. Landor Across Coveted Lands (1903) II. xxvi. 262 Two farsakhs (eight miles) brought us to the British Consular Postal Station. One room was full of provisions, the other accommodated the three postal sawars (riders).
1957 Winnipeg Free Press 9 Oct. 3/7 Postal stations in Winnipeg will be closed, although the general post office will be open from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m.
1997 M. Rossabi in A. T. Embree & C. Gluck Asia in Western & World Hist. 60 Kublai had established postal stations twenty-five to thirty miles apart all over his territories.
2006 T. Cowen Good & Plenty ii. 53 William Faulkner worked for a time as postmaster at the University of Mississippi postal station.
postal telegraph n. originally U.S. (now historical) a public postal system using the electronic telegraph.
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1866 N.Y. Times 5 June 4/6 (heading) A communication to the House on the Postal Telegraph System.
1870 Times 17 Mar. 10/4 A statement of the total number of messages forwarded from postal telegraph stations in the United Kingdom.
1928 J. Gollomb tr. R. Brunet New German Constit. ii. 66 The unity of the Reich is greatly strengthened by the fact that the principal public services—the army, finances, diplomatic corps, postal telegraphs, railroads—are hereafter completely concentrated in its hands.
2000 R. R. John in A. D. Chandler & J. W. Cortada Nation Transformed by Information iii. 78 Beginning in 1868, he lobbied Congress for several years to charter a ‘postal telegraph’ that would compete with Western Union by reducing rates and expanding public access.
postal trade n. trade conducted by post; mail order business.
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society > trade and finance > other trading methods > [noun]
fair trading1685
grocery1689
carriage trade1720
sale or (formerly and) return1795
Labour Exchange1828
security system1831
smousingc1876
postal trade1902
triangular trade1934
switch trading1967
relationship management1970
p-y-o1977
counter-trade1978
pick-your-own1980
counter-trading1983
fair trade1986
carry trade1994
1902 Encycl. Brit. XXV. 99/2 What is called in England ‘postal trade’, and in America ‘mail order business’, is growing very rapidly.
1958 Times 14 June 1/5 Our connoisseurs' blend of ‘factory fresh’ tea now available for our postal trade.
2002 Irish Times (Nexis) 3 Oct. 8 The report is available through the office's postal trade service, which caters for bulk orders from bookshops as well as individual orders from members of the public.
postal tube n. a cardboard tube in which documents, plans, etc., can be sent by post.
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society > communication > correspondence > postal services > equipment for sending or delivering mail > [noun] > container to convey items
mailing tube1889
postal tube1894
mailer1923
1894 Country Gentlemen's Catal. 166 Postal Pockets..Direction Labels, Postal Tubes.
1933 Sir J. H. Jeans New Background Sci. (1934) iv. 134 A single sheet of paper pasted so as to form a cylinder of paper—like a postal-tube.
1990 Brit. Printer Nov. 71/3 (advt.) Industrial & postal tubes snap close or plastic plug.
postal union n. an international union for the regulation of postal services; spec. (with capital initials) the union for this purpose established by the Treaty of Berne on 9 October 1874 (more fully The Universal Postal Union).
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society > communication > correspondence > postal services > [noun] > postal union
postal union1853
1853 Debow's Rev. Feb. 162/1 It is estimated that the countries, including the German Austrian Postal Union, which are thus brought into postal communication with the United States, embrace a population of seventy millions.
1875 (Inscription) Foreign Post Card for countries included in the Postal Union. One Penny Farthing.
1961 K. F. Chapman Commonw. Stamp Collecting ii. 34 Both territories..have issued definitive stamps recognized by the Universal Postal Union for international use.
1993 Gibbons Stamp Monthly Jan. 57/1 HM Treasury reluctantly agreed that the exchange of mails between the protectorate and England could be conducted on Postal Union principles.
postal vote n. a vote submitted by post; (also) = postal ballot n.
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the mind > will > free will > choice or choosing > expression of choice by some approved method > [noun] > voting by post or when absent
absent vote1850
letter ballot1874
vote-by-mail1880
postal ballot1888
postal vote1903
postal voting1913
1903 Times 14 Mar. 14/5 An amendment..was defeated... A postal vote will, however, be taken.
1979 Washington Post (Nexis) 25 Oct. f1 Some committee members..are arguing that the issue is too important to leave to a postal vote.
2001 Daily Tel. 17 May 27/4 The danger in a postal vote is that it is a witnessable vote.
postal voting n.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > will > free will > choice or choosing > expression of choice by some approved method > [noun] > voting by post or when absent
absent vote1850
letter ballot1874
vote-by-mail1880
postal ballot1888
postal vote1903
postal voting1913
1913 Times 30 Sept. 5/5 The alteration of the electoral law to restore postal voting.
1945 Times 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.
1997 Shetland Times 21 Nov. 17/4 It said the benefits of postal voting were that it encouraged more people to vote, it was easier for people to do so and it was easier to organise by the council.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2006; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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adj.n.1842