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Etymology and origin of the English word mailbox

Confidence
Established
Formation
Compound
First attested
1797
Ultimate origins
Old French maleAncient Greek πύξος
Etymology tree
inherited borrowed derived
English mail
English mailbox
From the same root
English voicemail ← mail

Pronunciation

  • /ˈmeɪl.bɑks/[1]

Etymology

It is formed from English mail + box,[2][3][4] from mail in the sense of the post.[2][3] The noun mail comes from Old French male (“wallet, bag, bundle”), and box from Late Latin buxis.[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

A box for the mailbags on a coach: 1797, in Etymonline;[3] the OED's first record of this sense is from 1810.[2]

Semantic evolution

The first mailboxes were boxes for carrying the mail on a mail coach or steamer, a sense obsolete by the 1870s;[2][3] Scott also used the word in 1819 for a writing box.[2] In American English it came to mean a box placed in a public place for posting letters, recorded by 1853 in Etymonline and in 1871 in the OED,[3][2] and then a box for the delivery of letters, especially one mounted on a post at the entrance to a property (1885).[2] In computing it was used from 1965 for an area of memory shared by a processor and a peripheral, and since 1971 for the store in which a user's electronic mail is received.[2]

Timeline

  • 1797 – a box for the mailbags on a coach.[3] The OED's first record is from 1810.[2]
  • 1819 – a writing box (rare, obsolete).[2]
  • 1853 – in American English, a public box for posting letters.[3] The OED's first record is from 1871, and Merriam-Webster dates it to 1868.[2][5]
  • 1885 – a box for delivered letters, especially one on a post at the entrance to a property.[2]
  • 1965 – in computing, a shared area of memory.[2]
  • 1971 – a storage area for a user's electronic mail.[2]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A public box into which letters are put for collection; a postbox.[6][5][7][2]
  2. A private box for delivered mail, especially one on a post at the entrance to a property: She found a parcel in the mailbox.[6][5][7][2]
  3. A computer file or storage area in which a user's email is received and kept.[6][5][7][2]
  4. (computing) An area of memory shared by a processor and a peripheral for passing data.[2]
  • post office box
  • postbox
  • letterbox
  • mail
  • box

Usage notes

The OED and the Concise Oxford label the postal senses North American;[2][7] the American Heritage Dictionary gives postbox and letterbox as other names for them.[6]

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  4. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  5. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  6. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  7. ^ a b c d Soanes, Catherine; Stevenson, Angus, eds. (2004), Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
Cite this entry

“Mailbox.” Etymologically, 31 Oct. 2026, etymologically.com/en/mailbox. Accessed 1 Nov. 2026.

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