post office

noun

|Updated on: 9 Aug 2018

Definition of post office

1 : a government department or agency handling the transmission of mail

2 : a local branch of a national post office handling the mail for a particular place or area

3 : a game in which a player acting as postmaster or postmistress may exact a kiss from one of the opposite sex as payment for the pretended delivery of a letter

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Recent Examples of post office from the Web

In the Gillibrand proposal, the post office would offer free deposit accounts for amounts up to $20,000.

— michael taylor, San Antonio Express-News, "Re-envisioning basic banking," 6 July 2018
The Postal Service originally was told the landlord wouldn’t renew its lease, and the post office would have to leave the building, Fetterly said on Thursday.

— marci shatzman, Sun-Sentinel.com, "Boca Raton's downtown post office won't move after all," 5 July 2018
The building, a post office designed in the mid-century modern style, has undergone several renovations since it was constructed in 1959.

— kate talerico, The Courier-Journal, "Parking for bikes but not cars? This development plan is going green," 28 June 2018
Postal officials were not available to comment, but Mayor Jaime Doyle said the post office will operate out of Joliet and officials were trying to find a secure location in town for people to pick up their mail.

— susan demar lafferty, Daily Southtown, "Tornado damage closes Manhattan post office," 27 June 2018
And how do post offices safely deal with such insubstantial ephemera?

— sue wunder, The Christian Science Monitor, "The payback of follow-through," 23 May 2018
La Cocina’s Tenderloin space was last a post office roughly three years ago, but has since sat unoccupied.

— justin phillips, SFChronicle.com, "La Cocina’s Tenderloin food hall takes a step forward," 11 July 2018
Born in Kyoto, Japan, Morimoto grew up in rural Western Massachusetts in a town with one store, one post office and a pub, all in the same building.

— hannah steinkopf-frank, RedEye Chicago, "Sen Morimoto gets moody with his saxophone," 11 July 2018
While the details behind the agreement are not public, available evidence suggests the opposite: that Amazon’s business has been a boon to the post office.

— julie creswell, New York Times, "Amazon Has a Business Proposition for You: Deliver Its Packages," 28 June 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'post office.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

First Known Use of post office

1652

in the meaning defined at sense 1

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POST OFFICE Defined for English Language Learners

post office

noun

Definition of post office for English Language Learners

: a building where the mail for a local area is sent and received
the Post Office : the government department in charge of collecting and delivering mail