Etymology

postman

post·man
P3O1S1T1M3A1N1

Today it means: Someone who delivers the post (mail) to, and/or collects the post from, residential or commercial addresses, or from public mailboxes. Full definition →

Middle English man ← Old English mann ← Proto-West Germanic *mann
Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

The story

  1. Proto-Indo-European*h₂ep
  2. Proto-Indo-European*h₂epó
  3. Proto-Indo-European*h₂pó
  4. Proto-Italic*po
  5. Proto-Indo-European*teḱ-
  6. Proto-Indo-European*tḱéytibf.
  7. Proto-Indo-European*tḱey-
  8. Proto-Indo-European*tḱinéti
  9. Proto-Italic*sinō
  10. Proto-Italic*pozinō
  11. Latinpōnō
  12. Latinposita
  13. Italianposta
  14. Middle Frenchposte
  15. Englishpost
  16. Proto-Indo-European*mon-
  17. Proto-Germanic*mann-
  18. Proto-West Germanic*mann
  19. Old Englishmann
  20. Middle Englishman
  21. English todaypostman

From post + -man.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.