post office meaning: definition, quotations

post office

nounalso spelled post-office

UK /ˈpəʊst ˌɒfɪs/ · US /ˈpoʊst ˌɔfɪs/

A place (building, office, shop, or counter) concerned with the business of delivering letters, post or mail and selling stamps, etc.

We were over the border here, into Northern Ireland, and the post office had a very English atmosphere. It was pleasant, too, much as we enjoyed the hospitality of the Republic, to be buying stamps with the Queen's head on them, and to be posting our cards in a red pillar-box, instead of a green one.1955 June, Rev. A. W. V. Mace, “An Irish Journey—2”, in Railway Magazine, page 393:

An organization that delivers letters.

“The post-office is a wonderful establishment!” said she.—“The regularity and despatch of it! If one thinks of all that it has to do, and all that it does so well, it is really astonishing!”1815, Jane Austen, Emma, volume II, chapter 16:

Canada, US A party game involving the exchange of kisses.

Derived terms: post office box, post-office order, post office telephone system, sub-post office, travelling post office

noun

Dated Dated form of post office.

However, as he kept the post-office, it was imagined he had better opportunities of obtaining news; his paper was thought a better distributer of advertisements than mine, and therefore had many, more, which was a profitable thing to him, and a disadvantage to me; for, tho’ I did indeed receive and send papers by the post, […]1771–1790, Benjamin Franklin, “The Autobiography [Part 1]”, in John Bigelow, editor, Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. […], Philadelphia, Pa.: J[oshua] B[allinger] Lippincott & Co., published 1868, →OCLC, pages 188–189:
The post-office has a great charm at one period of our lives. When you have lived to my age, you will begin to think letters are never worth going through the rain for.1815 December (indicated as 1816), [Jane Austen], chapter XVI, in Emma: […], volume II, London: […] [Charles Roworth and James Moyes] for John Murray, →OCLC, pages 306–307:

4 more examples

An embezzlement of government money to the extent of about Rs. 2,000 was discovered some time ago in the post-office here, between the baboo, mutsuddy and mohurrer.1835 February 23, Asiatic Journal and Monthly Miscellany, page 104:
[…] that he and David Whitmer swore falsley, stole, cheated, lied, sold bogus money, (base coin,), and also stones and sand for bogus; that letters in the post-office had been opened, read, and destroyed; and that those same men were concerned with a gang of counterfeiters, coiners, and blacklegs.1842, Daniel Parish Kidder, Mormonism and the Mormons: A Historical View of the Rise and Progress of the Sect Self-styled Latter-Day Saints, Carlton & Lanahan:
In all cases of this sort, it will be sufficient, that a letter is put into the post-office early enough after the day of the dishonor of the Note to go by the next post, whether it be a bi-weekly, or tri-weekly, or a mere weekly conveyance, if it be the ordinary mode of communication.1845, Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Law of Promissory Notes and Guaranties of Notes and Checks on Banks and Bankers, page 388:
For my part, I could easily do without the post-office. I think that there are very few important communications made through it.1854 August 9, Henry D[avid] Thoreau, “Where I Lived, and What I Lived For”, in Walden; or, Life in the Woods, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor and Fields, →OCLC, pages 101–102: