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email

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

See also: Email, e-mail, E-Mail, and émail

English

WOTD – 2 April 2020

Etymology 1

The noun is an abbreviation of electronic mail.[1] The verb is derived from the noun, by analogy with mail (“to send through the mail”).[2]

Alternative forms

Pronunciation

Noun

email (countable and uncountable, plural emails) (computing)

  2. (uncountable) A system for transferring messages from one computer to another, usually through a network.
    Synonym: mail
    Antonyms: mail, post, snail mail
    He sent me his details via email.
    The advent of email has simultaneously brought our society closer together and farther apart.
    Please stop sending me “constructive criticisms” via email, or telling me that “ I feel you are being defensive”, especially just after I have told you “you’re loved”. “Rewards” like that are horrible.
  4. (uncountable) A quantity of messages sent through an email system.
    Synonym: mail
    Antonyms: mail, post, snail mail
    I am searching through my old email.
    My inbox used to allow only 50 MB of email at a time until last year, when they upgraded it to 2 GBs!
  6. (countable) A message sent through an email system.
    Synonym: mail
    Antonym: mailpiece
    He sent me an email last week to remind me about the meeting.
    I archive my old emails using a cloud-based service.
  8. (countable, informal) An email address.
    What’s your email?
    In this system, your username is your email.
    Don’t send personal messages to my work email.
Derived terms
Translations

Verb

email (third-person singular simple present emails, present participle emailing, simple past and past participle emailed)

  1. (transitive) To send an email or emails to.
    She emailed me last week, asking about the status of the project.
  2. (transitive, ditransitive) To send (something) through email.
    I’ll email you the link.
    He emailed the file out to everyone.
  3. (intransitive) To send, or compose and send, an email or emails.
    Most teenagers seem to spend almost the whole day emailing and surfing the Web.
Translations

See also

Etymology 2

Borrowed from Middle French email, from Old French esmal (“enamel”) (modern French émail (“enamel; vitreous enamel; glaze (coating on pottery)”)),[3] from Medieval Latin smaltum (“enamel”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *(s)meld- (“to melt; to soften”). Doublet of smalt, smalto, and schmaltz.

Pronunciation

Noun

email (plural emails)

  1. (obsolete, rare) Enamel (“an opaque, glossy coating”).
    • 1579 January 11, George Puttenham, “[Appendix] Partheniades [No. 15; believed to have been presented to Elizabeth I of England on 1 January 1579 (Julian calendar)]”, in Joseph Haslewood, editor, Ancient Critical Essays upon English Poets and Poësy (Miscellanea Poetica Anglicana Antiqua; 1), volume I, London: Printed by Harding and Wright, […], for Robert Triphook, […], published 1811, →OCLC, page xxxiv:
      Set Naples courser to an asse, / Fine emerawde vnto greene glasse: / Set rich rubye to redd emayle, / The raven's plume to peacocke's tayle: / [...] / There shall no less an oddes be seene, / In myne from everye other Queene!
    • 1594, Tho[mas] Nashe, The Terrors of the Night or, A Discourse of Apparitions, London: Printed by Iohn Danter for William Iones, […], →OCLC, signature Diii; republished in Alexander B[alloch] Grosart, editor, The Complete Works of Thomas Nashe. In Four Volumes. […] (The Huth Library), volume III, London, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire: Printed [by Hazell, Watson, and Viney] for private circulation only, 1883–1884, →OCLC, pages 242–243:
      It is reported, that the Pope long ſince gaue them [the people of Iceland] a diſpenſation to receiue the Sacrament in ale, inſomuch as for their vnceſſant froſts there, no wine but was turned to red emayle, as ſoone as euer it came amongſt them.
      In other words, the weather was so cold that wine froze and resembled red enamel.
    • 1684, [Samuel] Du Clos, “The Eighth Class. Of Cold Waters somewhat Aigre and Vinous, which Participate of a Salt Resembling the Nitre of the Ancients.”, in Observations on the Mineral Waters of France, Made in the Royal Academy of the Sciences, […] Now Made English, London: Printed for Henry Faithorne, and John Kersey […], →OCLC, pages 96–97:
      Another part of this Earth being mixt with an equal part of its Salt, and put on the Fire to melt, in part pierc'd thro the Crucible, which was found on the outside, as it were, lin'd with a Brown Email, and the inside of the Crucible was cover'd with a Clear-Red Email.
Alternative forms
Derived terms
  • email ink
  • emailled (adjective)

References

  1. [1]
    “email, n.2”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, September 2011; “email, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022..
  2. [2]
    “email, v.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, September 2011; “email, v.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
  3. [3]
    “† email, n.1”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, September 2011.

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