posta

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   historical, in Spanish America: a staging post or outpost on a travel or communication route, with a relay of horses and often a small staff or guard

   The riders changed horses at each posta on the long route to Buenos Aires.

Borrowed from Spanish posta, 'staging post or relay of horses,' from Italian posta, the feminine of posto, 'placed.' It shares its Romance history with English post in the old relay-station sense. Nineteenth-century travelers in South America used posta and its plural postas for the local network of horse relays and guarded stations.

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