postal

Pronunciation

• IPA: UK /ˈpəʊ.stəl/, US /ˈpoʊ.stəl/^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French postal, from poste (“postal service”),^[2][3] or formed in English from post, the mail, on the model of the French adjective.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Relating to the post or the carriage of mail: 1842 in Merriam-Webster, 1843 in Etymonline and the OED.^[2][4][5]

Semantic evolution

In American English a postal was also a postal car or mail train (1871).^[5] The postal ballot, voting by post, is from 1945.^[5] Going postal, flying into a violent rage, is attested by 1997, after a series of workplace shootings in the United States by what news reports called a “disgruntled postal worker”, a cliché from at least 1994.^[4]

Timeline

• 1842 – relating to the mail.^[2]
• 1871 – a postal car (US).^[5]
• 1945 – postal ballot.^[5]
• by 1997 – going postal.^[4]

Modern meaning

Adjective

1. Of or relating to the post office or the mail service.

Noun

1. go postal (US slang): to become uncontrollably or violently angry.

Word family

• postally
• semipostal
• postal service
• postal order
• postal code

Related words

• post
• post office
• postage
• postman

References

1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
2. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
3. ^ Pearsall, Judy, ed. (1998), The New Oxford Dictionary of English, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d e Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press