| 释义 |
post office, post-office|ˈpəʊstˌɒfɪs|
[f. post n.2 + office.]
1. (With capital initial.) The public department charged with the conveyance of letters, etc., by post. In early use, sometimes meaning the office of the master of the posts, or postmaster (general); in other instances it is difficult to separate it from the local centre or head quarters of the department, the General Post Office in London or other capital.
The name appears first under the Commonwealth, the earlier name having been letter-office.[1635(July 31) in Rymer Fœdera (1732) XIX. 649 A Proclamation for the settling of the Letter Office of England and Scotland. 1641–2Jrnl. Ho. Com. 22 Mar., That Mr. Glynn do report to-morrow the matter concerning the sequestration of the letter-offices. 1646Jrnl. Ho. Lords 3 Dec., All his estate and interest in the Foreign Letter-office.] 1652Jrnl. Ho. Com. 19 Oct., Sir David Watkins, his claim to the foreign post-office. 1657Acts & Ordin. Parl. c. 30 (Scobell) 512 From henceforth there be one General Office, to be called and known by the name of the Post-Office of England; and one Officer..nominated and appointed..under the Name and Stile of Postmaster-General of England, and Comptroller of the Post-Office. 1666Lond. Gaz. No. 85/4 The general Post-office is for the present held at the two Black Pillars in Bridges-street. 1731Gay in Swift's Wks. (1761) VIII. 130 If you don't send to me now and then, the post-office will think me of no consequence. 1738–9King in Swift's Lett. (1768) IV. 223 The ill-treatment I received from the post-office; for some time I did not receive a letter that had not been opened. 1804Bp. of Lincoln in G. Rose's Diaries (1860) II. 94 Lord Charles Spencer will..resign the Post-Office. 1845Disraeli Sybil ii. xv, The king granted the duke and his heirs for ever, a pension on the post-office. 1893H. Joyce Hist. Post Office vi. 46 The headquarters of the Post Office were at this time [1690] in Lombard Street. Here the postmasters-general resided.
2. a. A house or shop where postal business is carried on, where postage stamps are sold, letters are registered and posted for transmission to their destinations, and from some of which letters received from places at home and abroad are delivered.
The name is now commonly applied even to small branch offices, sub-offices, or receiving-houses, which sell stamps and receive letters for transmission, but from which letters are not delivered, this being generally done directly from the central or head office of a town or district.
General Post Office, the central or head post office of a country or state, as that in St. Martin's Le Grand, London; also popularly applied to the head post office in a city or town which has branch offices subordinate to it.
[1657Acts & Ordin. Parl. c. 30 The erecting and setling of one general Post-office. 1660: see general a. 2 b.] 1675,1708[see general a. 2 b]. 1679Oates Narr. Popish Plot 46 Some of which [Letters] were delivered to the Post-office in Russel-street; others to the Post-office General. 1709Steele Tatler No. 19 ⁋2, I have..looked over every Letter in the Post-Office for my better Information. 1725Wodrow Corr. (1843) III. 196 You do not expect I should write a detail, since I behoved to take dinner, and at eight the post-office closes. 1802M. Edgeworth Moral T., Angelina ii. (1857) I. 237 She actually discovered that there was a post-office at Cardiffe. 1825A. Opie Illustrations Lying I. v. 125 He had reached a general postoffice. 1860Tyndall Glac. i. xii. 90 Money was waiting for me at the post-office in Geneva. 1867Trollope Chron. Barset II. lix. 168 She well remembered the number of the post-office in the Edgeware Road. 1893H. Joyce Hist. Post Office v. 41 Up to April 1680 the General Post Office in Lombard Street was the only receptacle for letters in the whole of London. Mod. Colloq. In Oxford the General Post Office is in St. Aldate's Street.
b. transf. A person who receives information and either transmits it or holds it for collection, esp. in espionage; also = drop n. 17 d. slang.
1885E. W. Hamilton Diary 12 Apr. (1972) II. 835 M. Lessar suggests that Brett should be asked to be the post office of the Russian Embassy. Accordingly, Lessar goes to Brett, and hands him a Memorandum... Brett forwards the Memorandum here. 1919J. Buchan Mr. Standfast vii. 148, I had got precisely what Blenkiron wanted, a post office for the enemy... I could see the juiciest lies passing that way to the Grosses Hauptquartier. 1935A. J. Pollock Underworld Speaks 90/2 Post office, a person who receives or delivers letters to crooks. 1945Tee Emm (Air Ministry) V. 55 Beware of becoming a ‘post office’, simply passing on everything that comes in, happy in the knowledge that there is a higher authority behind you. 1965D. Williams Not in Public Interest vii. 133 It became evident in 1911 that the hairdresser's shop of Karl Gustav Ernst was being used as a ‘post office’ or clearing-house for German espionage agents in this country. 1974T. Allbeury Snowball iv. 20 Just a low-grade courier, a dead letterbox and a post office.
3. U.S. A parlour game in which the participants in turn act as postmaster or postmistress and pretend to deliver letters which are paid for by kisses. Cf. postman's knock (postman1 1 d (b)).
The sense in quot. 1851 is uncertain.
1851J. H. Green Twelve Days in Tombs 157 How often have the professors of Christianity violated all moral principles in the..game of Post-office, where we find stationed some beautiful sister as post mistress, whose duty it is to write the names of those from whom she thinks she can secure the postage. 1855Quincy (California) Prospector 31 Mar. 2/1 We are astonished to see men and women who are looked upon as samples for the rising generation, join in such childish plays as..‘Post office’, &c. 1899Amer. Physical Educ. Rev. 361 Those who select love games are at the dawn of adolescence. ‘Drop-the-handkerchief’ and ‘post-office’ are the two favorites of this group. 1904C. S. Darrow Farmington 163 We had to keep still, and couldn't go outdoors, and had to play ‘needle's eye’ and ‘post-office’. 1914B. Tarkington in Cosmopolitan Mar. 489/2 ‘We'd have been playing ‘Quaker meeting’, ‘clap in, clap out’, or ‘going to Jerusalem’, I suppose.’ ‘Yes, or ‘post-office’ and ‘drop the handkerchief’,’ said Mrs. Schofield. 1949Sat. Even. Post 12 Mar. 60/3 After a time this palled and they played Post Office.
4. attrib. and Comb., as post-office clerk, post office directory, post office employee, post office inspector, post office-keeper, post office servant, post office counter, post office door, post office window, etc.; also in the names of colours associated with various Post Office services, as post-office green, post office red, post office yellow; post-office address = postal address; post-office annuity, insurance, a system whereby annuities can be purchased and lives insured through the post office; post-office box, (a) a private box or pigeon-hole at a post office, in which all the letters and papers for a private person or firm are put and kept till called for; (b) = post-office bridge; post-office bridge, a portable self-contained form of Wheatstone bridge containing a large number of resistors which are selected by means of plugs; post-office car, U.S., a mail-van or coach on a railway; post-office department = post office 1; post-office order, a money-order for a specified sum, issued upon payment of the sum and a small commission at one post office, and payable at another therein named, to a person whose name is officially communicated in a letter of advice; post-office packet Hist., a packet-boat carrying mail for the Post Office; post-office savings-bank, a bank having branches at local post offices where sums within fixed limits are received on government security, at a fixed rate of interest; since 1 Oct. 1969, known as the National Savings Bank; hence post-office savings(-bank)-book; post-office stamp, a stamp officially imprinted on a letter by the post office; also the instrument used for stamping the postmark.
1901Tribune (Chicago) 16 Feb., Give *postoffice address in full.
1894W. A. Price Measurement Electr. Resistance 81 Bridge ratios of 1000 and ·001 are available in addition to those in the *Post Office box. 1914Phil. Mag. XXVIII. 470 The resistances of the films of low resistance were measured by a post-office box in the ordinary way. 1965G. A. G. Bennet Electr. & Mod. Physics viii. 129/2 A Wheatstone type network is connected up as shown..with the galvanometer as one of the four resistances; a Post Office box would be suitable for this purpose.
1891H. L. Webb Testing of Insulated Wires & Cables vi. 38 A small clamp for holding the battery key down permanently would be a useful addition to a *Post-office bridge. 1931W. L. Upson Electr. Lab. Stud. iii. 45 There is a second form of Wheatstone bridge known as the ‘post-office bridge’. In this type there is no wire giving wide variability to the ratio of B to A, but there are fixed resistance coils so that the ratio may be made 1 to 1, 1 to 10, [etc.].
1883Manch. Exam. 30 Oct. 8/4 There is..in every train..a *post-office car, which contains..a letter box, in which letters may be deposited anywhere en route.
1866J. Rees Foot-Prints 326 Reed was an old *post-office clerk, who..had been in the office for twenty odd years.
1782Jrnls. of Congress (1823) IV. 93 Any post-master, post-rider, or other person employed in the *post-office department. 1816Amer. St. Papers (1834) XV. 50 To investigate the conduct of the General Post Office Department.
1803Post-Office Annual Directory: London 3 The Editors of the *Post-Office Directory..present their most sincere and grateful Acknowledgements. 1852Dickens Bleak Ho. (1853) viii. 70 It appeared to us that some of them must pass their whole lives in dealing out subscription-cards to the whole Post-office Directory. 1963Ophthalmic Optician 20 Apr. 408/1 If the hole exposes telephone services and cables, the perimeter will be lined with machinery painted in *Post Office green.
1837Dickens Pickw. ii, Mrs. Tomlinson, the *post-office-keeper, seemed..to have been chosen the leader of the trade party.
1843Dickens Let. 30 Dec. (1974) III. 617 For a *post office order there is no time. 1850Advt. in ‘Bat’ Cricket. Man. 103 A remittance or Post-office order. 1865Dickens Mut. Fr. i. xvii, No Post⁓office order is in the interim received from Nicodemus Boffin, Esquire.
1780A. Young Tour in Ireland i. 342 It is much to be wished, that there were some means of being secure of packets sailing regularly..; with the *post-office packets there is this satisfaction. 1855Dickens Holly Tree Inn in Househ. Words Extra Christmas No., 15 Dec. 1/2 The Post-office packet for the United States was to depart from Liverpool.
1778F. Burney Evelina (1791) II. xxi. 132 The *post-office people will let us know if they hear of him.
1930Times Educ. Suppl. 18 Jan. (Suppl.) p. iv/2 Red offers a fertile field for flights of descriptive fancy... *Post Office red, and sealing wax red may be hackneyed words, but their tone is not in doubt. 1978Lancashire Life Sept. 89/2 Newspapers, medicines, grocery orders—all are piled aboard the valley's post-office-red lifeline for delivery en route.
1861Act 24 & 25 Vict. c. 14 *Post Office Savings Banks..An Act to grant additional Facilities for depositing small Savings at Interest, with the Security of the Government for due Repayment thereof [17th May 1861]. Whereas it is expedient..to make the General Post Office available for that Purpose. 1885Encycl. Brit. XIX. 572/2 The establishment of post-office savings banks was practically suggested in the year 1860 by Mr Charles William Sykes of Huddersfield, whose suggestion was cordially received by Mr Gladstone... Half a century earlier (1807) it had been proposed to utilize the then existing..money-order branch of the post-office for the collection and transmission of savings..to a central savings bank to be established in London. 1936M. Allingham Flowers for Judge xi. 172 Mr. Campion turned over the battered cardboard-backed book... ‘Post Office Savings Bank?.. Whose is it?’ Ibid. xviii. 260 One day you find her Post Office Savings Bank-book. 1966B. Kimenye Kalasanda Revisited 21 His Post Office Savings book boasted the grand total of 600s. 1973P. Moyes Curious Affair of Third Dog viii. 104 A Post Office savings book showing a balance of some ten pounds.
1891‘Phil’ Penny Postage Jubilee ix. 156 It was not an uncommon practice of the *post-office servants to mark the postage on the envelope with pen and red ink. 1893H. Joyce Hist. Post Office vi. 44 Out of London, the Post Office servants remained [in 1690] much as they had been ten years before, at about 239 in number, of whom all but twelve were postmasters.
1827Amer. St. Papers (1834) XV. 304 William J. Stone, for *post office stamps, $128·49.
1976Scotsman 15 Dec. 14/3 (Advt.), The Telecommunications showroom..is decorated internally in *Post Office yellow, with relief panels throughout in silver. |