postbox

C2+ Topic:General Vocabulary

US /ˈpoʊstˌbɑks/ UK /ˈpəʊstˌbɒks/ See IPA manual

Meanings

1

noun
a public box into which letters are placed for collection by the post office

She dropped the birthday card into the red postbox on the corner.

Thesaurus

Synonyms

1 noun · a public box into which... mailboxletterboxpillarbox

Word family

Etymology

A compound of post ('mail system') + box. Post derives from French poste, from Italian posta, ultimately from Latin posita ('placed, set'), from ponere ('to place').

posta Italian ponere Latin

View etymology graph ->

Topics

General Vocabulary

External links

# postbox

**Type:** Word
**Level:** C2+
**Part of speech:** noun
**IPA (US):** /ˈpoʊstˌbɑks/
**IPA (UK):** /ˈpəʊstˌbɒks/

## Meanings
1. a public box into which letters are placed for collection by the post office

## Examples
- She dropped the birthday card into the red postbox on the corner.

## Synonyms
- mailbox
- letterbox
- pillarbox

## Related Forms
- post
- box

## Roots and Affixes
- Root: posta
- Root: ponere - to put

## Etymology
A compound of post ('mail system') + box. Post derives from French poste, from Italian posta, ultimately from Latin posita ('placed, set'), from ponere ('to place').

## AI Etymology
Postbox is a compound of post ('mail system') + box. Post derives from French poste, from Italian posta, ultimately from Latin posita ('placed, set'), from ponere ('to place'). Important recorded forms include posta (Italian) and ponere (Latin). Morphologically, the word preserves a built structure whose named elements carry the historical sense into English. The modern sense remains close to that composition, with the parts narrowing into a single lexical item. In current use it covers a public box into which letters are placed for collection by the post office. The wider family includes related words such as post and box.

## Topics
- General Vocabulary

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