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Origin and history of e-mail

e-mail

1982, short for electronic mail (1977; see electronic + mail (n.1)); this led to the contemptuous application of snail mail (1983) to the old system.

Even aerial navigation in 1999 was found too slow to convey and deliver the mails. The pneumatic tube system was even swifter, and with such facilities at hand it is not surprising that people in San Francisco received four daily editions of the Manhattan journals, although the distance between Sandy Hook and the Golden Gate is a matter of 3,600 miles. ["Looking Forward," Arthur Bird, 1899]

Associated Press style guide collapsed it to email 2011.

also from 1982

Entries linking to e-mail

electronic(adj.)

1901, "pertaining to electrons;" see electron + -ic; 1930 as "pertaining to electronics." Related: Electronically.

mail(n.1)

"post, letters," c. 1200, "a traveling bag, sack for keeping small articles of personal property," a sense now obsolete, from Old French male "wallet, bag, bundle," from Frankish *malha or some other Germanic source, from Proto-Germanic *malho- (source also of Old High German malaha "wallet, bag," Middle Dutch male "bag"), from PIE *molko- "skin, bag."

The sense was extended to "bag full of letters" (1650s; perhaps via phrases such as a mail of letters, 1654) and "person or vehicle that carries postal matter" (1650s). Thence, to "letters and parcels" generally (1680s) and "the system of transmission by public post" (1690s).

As a newspaper name, by 1789. In 19c. England, mail was letters going abroad, while home dispatches were post. Sense of "a personal batch of letters" is from 1844, originally American English. Mail slot "narrow opening in an exterior door of a building to receive mail delivery" is by 1893, American English. OED defines it as a "letter-slit."

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copy
Meaning "send a copy (of a letter, later e-mail, etc.) to a third party" is attested by 1983. Related: Copied; copying....
cataphract
scale-like metal armor for the body," from Latin cataphractes "breastplate of iron scales," from Greek kataphraktēs "coat of mail...
Melanesia
La Melanesia comprende la grande isola Australia, e quelle degli arcipelaghi di Salomone, di Lapèrouse, di Quiros, e dei...gruppi della Nuova Caledonia, di Norfolk, e della Diemenin....Neri Oceanici, che, quasi esclusivamente, ne popolano le regioni, questa parte della Oceania ebbe dai moderni geografi e...
sark
, body garment of linen or cotton for either sex," Middle English serk, late Old English serc "shirt, corselet, coat of mail...
attachment
"something that is attached to something else" dates from 1797 and has become very common since the rise of electronic mail...
postal
"pertaining to the mail system," 1843, on model of French postale (1836), from post (n.3)....
chitin
form of Greek khiton "frock, tunic, garment without sleeves worn directly on the body;" in reference to soldiers, "coat of mail...
Spam
proprietary name registered by Geo. A. Hormel & Co. in U.S., 1937; probably a conflation of spiced ham. Soon extended to other kinds of canned meat. Figurative of what is bland or unexciting by 1959. In the sense of "internet junk mail" it was coined by Usenet users some time
post
"a timber of considerable size set upright," from Old English post "pillar, doorpost," and from Old French post "post, upright beam," both from Latin postis "door, post, doorpost," in Medieval Latin "a beam, rod, pole," which is perhaps from Vulgar Latin *por- "forth," a variant
spot
c. 1200, "moral stain;" by mid-14c. as "speck, stain left by something on a surface;" probably at least in part from a variant of Old English splott "a spot, blot, patch (of land)," and partly from or related to Middle Dutch spotte "spot, speck." Other cognates are East Frisian s

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