Etymology
First use appears c. 1865. Borrowed from French philatélie, coined by French stamp collector Georges Herpin (in Le Collectionneur de Timbres-poste, Nov. 15, 1864) from Ancient Greek φιλέω (philéō, “I love”) + ἀτέλεια (atéleia), the closest word he could find in Ancient Greek to the concept of “postage stamp”, from ἀ- (a-, “without”) + τέλος (télos, “tax”). This word serves as a reminder of the original function of postage stamps, now often forgotten: the cost of letter-carrying formerly was paid by the recipient; stamps indicated it had been pre-paid by the sender, thus the letters were “carriage-free”.[1]
Noun
philately (countable and uncountable, plural philatelies)
- Stamp collecting.
- The study of postage stamps, postal routes, postal history, etc.
Translations
stamp collecting
- Breton: timbrouriezh (br) f
- Bulgarian: филателия f (filatelija)
- Catalan: filatèlia f
- Chinese:
- Mandarin: 集郵 / 集邮 (zh) (jíyóu)
- Czech: filatelie (cs) f
- Danish: filateli, frimærkesamling c
- Dutch: filatelie (nl) f
- Estonian: filateelia
- Finnish: filatelia (fi), postimerkkeily (fi), postimerkkien keräily
- French: philatélie (fr) f, collection de timbres f
- German: Philatelie (de) f, Briefmarkenkunde (de) f
- Hungarian: bélyeggyűjtés (hu)
- Icelandic: frímerkjasöfnun f
- Italian: filatelia (it) f
- Japanese: 切手収集 (ja) (きってしゅうしゅう, kitteshūshū)
- Latvian: filatelija
- Norwegian:
- Bokmål: frimerkesamling m or f
- Nynorsk: frimerkesamling f
- Polish: filatelistyka (pl) f
- Portuguese: filatelia (pt) f
- Russian: филатели́я (ru) f (filatɛlíja), коллекциони́рование ма́рок n (kollekcionírovanije márok)
- Spanish: filatelia (es) f
- Swedish: filateli (sv) c, frimärkssamlande n, frimärkssamling (sv) c
- Turkish: filateli (tr), pulculuk (tr)
- Ukrainian: філателі́я f (filatelíja)
|
the study of postage stamps, postal routes, postal history, etc.