Definition of "mail" in 英语

noun

1. (now regional) A bag or wallet.

2. A bag containing letters to be delivered by post.

3. The (physical) material conveyed by the postal service.

   • Meronym: mailpiece
   • Don't forget to pick up the mail on your way.
   • 1823, The stranger in Liverpool; or, An historical and descriptive view of the town of Liverpool and its environs, Seventh Edition, T. Kaye, page 96, The following are the hours at which the letter-box of this office is closed for making up the several mails, and the hours at which each mail is despatched: ¶ […]
   • 1887, John Houston Merrill (editor), The American and English Encyclopædia of Law, Volume I, Edward Thompson, p.121, If he retains the account, and permits several mails to pass without objecting to it, he will be held to have admitted its correctness.

4. (dated) A stagecoach, train or ship that delivers such post.

5. The postal service or system in general.

   • He decided to send his declaration by mail.

6. (uncountable) Electronic mail, e-mail: a computer network–based service for sending, storing, and forwarding electronic messages.

   • Yahoo Mail has been providing mail service since 1997.

7. (uncountable) Email messages conceived in bulk (as with the analogous sense of physical mail).

   • You've got mail [old audio clip announcing new email in the 1990s-2000s]

8. (countable, especially India) An email message.

   • Please look through those mails and confirm whether you received the one about scheduling.

9. A trunk, box, or bag, in which clothing, etc., may be carried.

verb

1. (ditransitive) To send (a letter, parcel, etc.) through the mail.

2. (ditransitive) To send by electronic mail.

   • Please mail me the spreadsheet by the end of the day.

3. (transitive) To contact (a person) by electronic mail.

   • I need to mail my tutor about the deadline.

noun

1. (uncountable, history) Armour consisting of metal rings linked together.

2. (uncountable, by extension, now fiction, fantasy) Armour consisting of small plates linked together.

3. (nautical) A contrivance of interlinked rings, for rubbing off the loose hemp on lines and white cordage.

4. Any hard protective covering of an animal, as the scales and plates of reptiles, shell of a lobster, etc.