mailman

Etymology

It is formed from English mail + man.^[2][3][4] Mail, here the bag of letters and the post, is from Middle English male (“bag”),^[5][2] from Old French male (“wallet, bag, bundle”), of Germanic origin;^[2][6][5] the OED compares Middle Dutch māle and Old High German malaha.^[6][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

A person who carries or delivers the mail: 1469, in an ordinance of the royal household, printed in 1790.^[6] Merriam-Webster Unabridged likewise dates the word to the 15th century,^[4] while Merriam-Webster's Collegiate gave 1786,^[7] Etymonline 1841,^[2] and Dictionary.com 1860–65.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Etymonline records it in 1841 for a person carrying the mail over a set route or between post offices, and notes that mail-carrier had the same sense from 1799.^[2] The word became chiefly North American,^[8] where mail is the usual word for the post;^[2] Etymonline notes that in 19th-century England mail meant letters going abroad, while letters at home were post, and that the verb mail, to send by post, began in American English in 1828.^[2] The American Heritage Dictionary and the Oxford Dictionary of English give postman as the equivalent,^[5][8] a word Etymonline finds in the sense "mailman" by 1758.^[2] The OED notes that the word historically meant specifically a man,^[6] and Merriam-Webster Unabridged defines it simply as a mail carrier.^[4]

Timeline

• 1469 – a person who carries or delivers the mail.^[6]

Meanings

Noun

1. (chiefly North American) A person, traditionally a man, who delivers and collects mail; a postman or mail carrier: The mailman left two parcels on the porch.^[8][4][5][6]

Related words

• mail

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
4. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ a b c d e f Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
8. ^ a b c Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press