mail

English

English Wikipedia has an article on:

mail

Wikipedia

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /meɪl/, enPR: māl

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪl
• Homophone: male

Etymology 1

From Middle English male, from Anglo-Norman male, Old French male (“bag, wallet”), from Frankish *malha (“bag”), from Proto-Germanic *malhō (“bag, pouch”), from Proto-Indo-European *molko- (“leather pouch”). Compare Dutch maal.

Noun

mail (countable and uncountable, plural mails)

1. (now regional) A bag or wallet.
   • 1499, John Skelton, The Bowge of Courte:

     What, loo, man, see here of dyce a bale; / A brydelynge caste for that is in thy male!

   • c. 1587–1588, [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. The First Part , 2nd edition, part 1, London: Richard Iones, , published 1592, →OCLC; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire, London: Scolar Press, 1973, →ISBN, Act I, scene ii:

     Open the Males, yet guard the treaſure ſure.
     Lay out our golden wedges to the view,
     That their reflexions may amaze the Perſeans.

2. A bag containing letters to be delivered by post.
3. The material conveyed by the postal service.

   Don't forget to pick up the mail on your way.

   • 1823, The stranger in Liverpool; or, An historical and descriptive view of the town of Liverpool and its environs, Seventh Edition, T. Kaye, page 96,

     The following are the hours at which the letter-box of this office is closed for making up the several mails, and the hours at which each mail is despatched: ¶

   • 1887, John Houston Merrill (editor), The American and English Encyclopædia of Law, Volume I, Edward Thompson, p.121,

     If he retains the account, and permits several mails to pass without objecting to it, he will be held to have admitted its correctness.

   • 1944 July and August, Charles E. Lee, “The "City of Truro"”, in Railway Magazine, page 202:

     The transfer by tender of some 1,300 mail bags was effected smartly, and the "Ocean Mails Special" train was ready at 9.19 a.m.

4. (dated) A stagecoach, train or ship that delivers such post.
   • 1950 April, Timothy H. Cobb, “The Kenya-Uganda Railway”, in Railway Magazine, page 263:

     All trains stop at all stations, with the exception of a few "local" stations near Mombasa and an odd flag stop or two usually missed by the mails.

   • 1962 December, “Motive Power Miscellany: North Eastern Region”, in Modern Railways, pages 422, 425:

     On the morning after the one-day strike, October 4, one of the Type 4s on crew-training, No. D169, was appropriated to head the 3 a.m. mail to Hull, as no steam locomotive had been lit up and the usual Hull Type 3 was not available; [...].

   • 2022 January 12, Benedict le Vay, “The heroes of Soham...”, in RAIL, number 948, page 42:

     As he passed though the station, he slowed to yell to the signalman, Frank 'Sailor' Bridges: "Sailor - have you anything between here and Fordham? Where's the mail?" Gimbert knew the mail train was due, and he didn't want to endanger another train with his burning bomb wagon.

5. The postal service or system in general.

   Synonym: (UK, Ireland) post

   He decided to send his declaration by mail.

6. (chiefly US, uncountable) The letters, parcels, etc. delivered to a particular address or person.
7. (uncountable) Electronic mail, e-mail: a computer network–based service for sending, storing, and forwarding electronic messages.
8. (countable) An email message.
9. A trunk, box, or bag, in which clothing, etc., may be carried.
   • 1819, Jedadiah Cleishbotham [pseudonym; Walter Scott], Tales of My Landlord, Third Series. , volumes (please specify |volume=I to IV), Edinburgh: [James Ballantyne and Co.] for Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, ; Hurst, Robinson, and Co. , →OCLC:

     “Fetch me the little private mail with the padlocks, that I recommended to your particular charge — d'ye hear?”

Usage notes

In the United States, the mails (with the and in the plural) can mean "the postal system".

Derived terms

Descendants

• → Japanese: メール

Translations

Verb

mail (third-person singular simple present mails, present participle mailing, simple past and past participle mailed)

2. (ditransitive) To send (a letter, parcel, etc.) through the mail.
3. (ditransitive) To send by electronic mail.

   Please mail me the spreadsheet by the end of the day.

   • 1983, Donn Seeley, “Source for 'Grab'”, in net.unix-wizards (Usenet):

     There has been a crackdown on non-ARPA use of a local ARPA gateway, so I am reluctant to attempt to mail the file to ARPA sites.

   • 1998, Michael Tomsett, “Re: Multiple postings?”, in alt.music.manics (Usenet):

     Since .mp3's are so big (well for me with a 33.6kp/s connection they are anyway) maybe you should offer on your site to mail the file to people who want it, and have them request it, thus saving your web space, your upload time and their download time […]

   • 2003, Chrissy, “Re: Send mail with attachment”, in microsoft.public.excel.programming (Usenet):

     If you mail an attachment from one mail client then it does not matter if the receiver uses a different mail client. The mail you send should be able to be read from their mail client.

4. (transitive) To contact (a person) by electronic mail.

   I need to mail my tutor about the deadline.

   • 2000, Carlton Alton Deltree, “Whoever did this sucks...”, in alt.comp.virus (Usenet):

     I was horrified but my data was OK. Then, it saw it open my e-mail package and start to mail my friends. I turned the power off.

   • 2002, Jessica Mann, The voice from the grave, page 189:

     'Yes, at Quantico. She was so excited by it, she sent all those emails, you remember I told you about it -' 'Yes, she mailed me from there too.'

   • 2011, Rose Budworth-Levine, Intimate Encounters, page 41:

     He mailed me and said he had managed to hack into my email accounts.

Synonyms

• (send through the mail): post

Derived terms

Descendants

• → Thai: เมล์ (mee)

Translations

Etymology 2

From Middle English mayle (“mail armor”), borrowed from Old French maille (“loop, stitch”), from Vulgar Latin *macla, from Latin macula (“blemish, mesh”), probably from Proto-Indo-European *smh₁-tleh₂, from *smeh₁- (“smear, rub”).

Alternative forms

• maille

Noun

mail (usually uncountable, plural mails)

1. (uncountable, history) Armour consisting of metal rings linked together.
   • 1853, John Ruskin, “Roman Renaissance”, in The Stones of Venice, volume III (The Fall), London: Smith, Elder, and Co., , →OCLC, § LVII, page 73:

     The knight is laid in his mail, only the hands and face being bare.

   • 1956, C. S. Lewis, The Last Battle:

     "That's funny looking mail, Sire," said Eustace.
     "Aye, lad," said Tirian. "No Narnian dwarf smithied that. […]

2. (uncountable, by extension, now fiction, fantasy) Armour consisting of small plates linked together.
3. (nautical) A contrivance of interlinked rings, for rubbing off the loose hemp on lines and white cordage.
4. Any hard protective covering of an animal, as the scales and plates of reptiles, shell of a lobster, etc.
   • 1716, John Gay, Epistle to the Earl of Burlington:

     We […] strip the lobster of his scarlet mail.

   • 1954 July 29, J[ohn] R[onald] R[euel] Tolkien, “A Journey in the Dark”, in The Fellowship of the Ring: Being the First Part of The Lord of the Rings, New York, N.Y.: Ballantine Books, published September 1973, →ISBN, page 412:

     There beryl, pearl, and opal pale, / And metal wrought like fishes' mail, / Buckler and corslet, axe and sword, / And shining spears were laid in hoard.

5. (obsolete, rare) A spot on a bird's feather; by extension, a spotted feather.
   • 1676, Izaak Walton, “.] Fovrth Day.”, in Richard Le Gallienne, editor, The Compleat Angler, 5th edition, London; New York, N.Y.: John Lane, The Bodley Head, published 1897, →OCLC, page 116:

     [T]he moorish-fly: made with the body of duskish wool; and the wings made of the blackish mail of the drake.

Usage notes

• Mail for a type of armour is in specialist academic usage now restricted to armour made up of interlocking rings, where its use for scale armour, lamellar armour or brigandine is considered antiquarian.

Derived terms

Related terms

• mailed

Translations

Verb

mail (third-person singular simple present mails, present participle mailing, simple past and past participle mailed)

1. (transitive) To arm with mail.
2. (transitive) To pinion.

Etymology 3

From Middle English mal, male from Old English māl (“speech, contract, agreement”) from Old Norse mál (“agreement, speech, lawsuit”). Akin to Old English mǣl (“speech”). Related to Old English mǣlan (mell), maþelian (“to speak out, declare”). From *maþlą (“meeting-place”), possibly from Proto-Indo-European *meh₂d- (“to encounter, come”), if so related to meet, and moot.

Alternative forms

• maile, maill, maille

Noun

mail (plural mails)

1. (historical) An old French coin worth half a denier.
2. (chiefly Scotland) A monetary payment or tribute.
3. (chiefly Scotland) Rent.
4. (chiefly Scotland) Tax.

Derived terms

Anagrams

• Alim, Liam, Lima, Mali, Mila, alim, lima, mali

Dalmatian

Etymology

From Latin milium.

Noun

mail m

1. millet
2. birdseed

Danish

Etymology

Borrowed from English email.

Noun

mail

1. email

Declension

Dutch

Pronunciation

• Audio

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eːl

Etymology 1

Shortened from e-mail.

Noun

mail m (plural mails, diminutive mailtje n)

1. (nonstandard) Alternative form of e-mail

Etymology 2

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

Verb

mail

1. inflection of mailen:
   1. first-person singular present indicative
   2. imperative

Estonian

Noun

mail

1. adessive plural of maa

Fiji Hindi

Etymology

Borrowed from English mile (“imperial measure of distance”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /maɪl/

Noun

mail

1. mile

References

• Fiji Hindi Dictionary

French

Etymology 1

Inherited from Latin malleus (“hammer”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /maj/

Noun

mail m (plural mails)

1. maul
2. (sports, historical) pall mall mallet
3. (by extension) pall mall
4. mall, promenade
5. (Quebec) mall, shopping mall

Derived terms

• maillet

Related terms

• malléable

Etymology 2

Borrowed from English email.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /mɛl/, /mɛjl/

Noun

mail m (plural mails)

1. (informal) email

   Synonyms: courriel, mél

Further reading

• “mail”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé , 2012.

Anagrams

• lima

German

Pronunciation

• Audio

  (file)

Verb

mail

1. singular imperative of mailen
2. (colloquial) first-person singular present of mailen

Gothic

Romanization

mail

1. Romanization of 𐌼𐌰𐌹𐌻

Italian

Etymology

Clipping of e-mail.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈmɛjl/, /ˈmejl/

• Audio

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛjl, -ejl

Noun

mail f (invariable)

1. (colloquial) email
   • 2016 December 29, Paolo Lepri, “Obama Putin (e non solo) la scelta di un finale in attacco”, in Corriere della Sera‎, retrieved 2020-11-10:

     […] una democrazia che Trump (ricordiamoci le accuse di «falsificazione» delle elezioni, la strumentalizzazione della vicenda delle mail di Hillary, l’uso senza scrupoli della «post-verità») deve assolutamente imparare a rispettare pienamente.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

Derived terms

• mail spazzatura (“spam mail”)

References

Further reading

• mail in Treccani.it – Vocabolario Treccani on line, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana

Anagrams

• Mali, almi, lima, mali, mila

Middle English

Noun

mail

1. Alternative form of mayle

Polish

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from English mail.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /mɛjl/

• Audio

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛjl
• Syllabification: mail
• Homophone: mejl

Noun

mail m inan

1. Alternative spelling of mejl

Declension

Derived terms

Related terms

Further reading

• mail in Wielki słownik języka polskiego, Instytut Języka Polskiego PAN
• mail in Polish dictionaries at PWN

Romansch

Alternative forms

• meil (Sursilvan, Surmiran)
• mel (Sutsilvan)

Etymology

From Late Latin mēlum, from Latin mālum. Compare Friulian mêl, Romanian măr.

Noun

mail m (plural mails)

1. (Rumantsch Grischun, Vallader) apple

Synonyms

• (Puter) pom

Spanish

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈmeil/
• Rhymes: -eil

Noun

mail m (plural mailes)

1. email

   Synonyms: correo, correo electrónico, email

Swedish

Noun

mail n

1. Alternative spelling of mejl

Declension

Anagrams

• Liam, Lima, Mali, mila

Tok Pisin

Etymology

From English mile.

Noun

mail

1. mile