email
Part of speech: noun
verb
Morphological type: simple
Topics: computing
engineering
mathematics
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
sciences
Etymology: Etymology tree
Ancient Greek ἤλεκτρον (ḗlektron)bor.
Latin ēlectrum
Proto-Indo-European *-ikos
Proto-Italic *-ikos
Latin -icus
New Latin ēlectricusbor.
English electric
Proto-Indo-European *h₁ey-
Proto-Indo-European *h₁éyti
Proto-Hellenic *éimi
Ancient Greek εἶμι (eîmi)der.
English ion
English electron
▲
Latin -icuslbor.
Old French -iquebor.
Middle English -ik
English -ic
English electronic
Proto-Germanic *malhō
Frankish *malhabor.
Medieval Latin malader.
Anglo-Norman malebor.
▲
Old French malebor.
Middle English male
English mail
English electronic mailabbr.
English email
The noun is an abbreviation of electronic mail. First attested in the 1970s. The verb is derived from the noun, by analogy with mail (“to send through the mail”).
Inflected forms:
form: emails
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: e-mail
pos: noun
tags: alternative
form: E-mail
pos: noun
tags: alternative
form: emails
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: emailing
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: emailed
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: emailed
pos: verb
tags: past
form: e-mail
pos: verb
tags: alternative
form: E-mail
pos: verb
tags: alternative
Senses:
gloss: A system for sending messages and datas by means of a computer network, primarily the Internet, using the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol and the Internet Message Format.
pos: noun
tags: uncountable
examples: 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.
gloss: The quantity of messages sent through an email system.
pos: noun
tags: uncountable
examples: 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!
gloss: A message being sent through email.
pos: noun
tags: countable
examples: He sent me an email last week to remind me about the meeting.
I archive my old emails using a cloud-based service.
gloss: An email address.
pos: noun
tags: countable
informal
examples: What’s your email?
In this system, your username is your email.
Don’t send personal messages to my work email.
gloss: To send an email or emails to.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: She emailed me last week, asking about the status of the project.
gloss: To send (data) through email.
pos: verb
tags: ditransitive
transitive
examples: I’ll email you the link.
He emailed the file out to everyone.
gloss: To send, or compose and then send, one or more emails.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
examples: Most teenagers seem to spend almost the whole day emailing and surfing the Web.
Related words: webmail
Derived words: cold email
e-barrassment
email account
e-mail address
email bankruptcy
email bomb
email client
emailee
emailer
Emailgate
email ID
email list
email reader
email storm
emailware
freemail
junk email
play-by-email
registered email
Translations: