Postman

How to spell postman

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce postman

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does postman mean?

1. nounA man employed to deliver letters and parcels to homes and businesses.

Postman in a sentence

• The postman left a parcel on the doorstep this morning.

• Every weekday the postman pushes letters through the brass slot.

Where does postman come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word joins two older elements: 'post' and 'man'. The 'post' part traces back through French to the Latin positus, the past participle of ponere meaning 'to place' or 'to set down', because the early postal system depended on relays of riders 'placed' or stationed at fixed points along a route to carry letters onward. By the 1500s 'post' had come to mean the organised service that conveyed mail, and the agent noun 'postman' was formed in English by the early 1600s for the man who carried and delivered that mail. The native suffix '-man', from Old English mann, simply marks the person who performs the work, just as in 'fireman' or 'milkman'. The spelling is straightforward, but the silent join between the 't' of 'post' and the 'm' of 'man' is the only point a writer must keep in mind.

How the word is built

• post (mail, from Latin positus 'placed')
• -man (person who does)