snail mail

English

WOTD – 3 April 2012

Etymology

A retronym emphasizing postal mail's slowness compared to email.

Pronunciation

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

Noun

snail mail (uncountable)

2. (retronym) Mail (physical material) sent in the post, especially as compared with email.

   I came home to a mailbox stuffed with snail mail.

   • 1993 November 9, L. R. Shannon, “Peripherals: MCI Mail Changes The Nature Of Letters”, in New York Times, retrieved 3 April 2014:

     To send a letter by snail mail (the Postal Service), you must still compose it, and also print it out, unless you write it by hand or on a typewriter.

4. (retronym) Mail (postal service), especially as compared with email.

   The official notice will be sent via both email and snail mail owing to legal requirements.

Synonyms

• smail

Translations

postal mail

• Catalan: correu ordinari m
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 郵局遞送的郵件 / 邮局递送的邮件 (yóujú dìsòng de yóujiàn)

• Danish: sneglepost c
• Dutch: slakkenpost, snailmail
• Estonian: tigupost
• Finnish: etanaposti (fi)
• French: courrier papier m, courrier traditionnel m
• Galician: correo postal m
• German: Schneckenpost (de) f, Snailmail (de) f Snail-Mail f
• Icelandic: sniglapóstur (is) m
• Italian: posta cartacea f
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: sneglepost m

  Nynorsk: sniglepost m

• Portuguese: correio lesma m
• Russian: (обычная (ru) (obyčnaja)) по́чта (ru) f (póčta)
• Spanish: correo postal m, correo ordinario m
• Swedish: snigelpost (sv) c
• Telugu: తంతి తపాలా (tanti tapālā)