Meanings
plural electronic mails
- uncountablecomputingEmail (the system).First known use 1970s
Electronic mail is the single most visible application of distributed computing today.
1992, Sara Radicati, Electronic Mail: An Introduction to the X.400 Message Handling Standards, McGraw-Hill, →ISBN, page 11 more example
[…] the impossibility of representing such noises [‘mumble’, ‘sigh’, and ‘groan’] on a comm link or in electronic mail […]
1996, Raymond, Eric S., Steele, Guy L., editors, The New Hacker's Dictionary, 3 edition, MIT Press, →ISBN, page 13 - countablerareAn email.
Employees are asked to exercise extreme caution when opening electronic mails and attachments sent by unknown or unfamiliar correspondents, or which require the recipient to execute a program, open an attachment or decompress an archive such as a Winzip™ file.
2006, Edward Wilding, Information Risk and Security, Gower Publishing, Ltd., →ISBN, page 306
Synonyms & antonyms
noun(computer science) a system of world-wide electronic communication in which a computer user can compose a message at one terminal that can be regenerated at the recipient's terminal when the recipient logs in
Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.
Cite this entry
electronic mail. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/electronic%20mail
“electronic mail.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/electronic%20mail. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “electronic mail,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/electronic%20mail.
Source: electronic mail on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.