mailboat

plural mailboats

1. A boat used to transport mail.

   Stephen stood up and went over to the parapet. Leaning on it he looked down on the water and on the mailboat clearing the harbourmouth of Kingstown.

   1922 February 2, James Joyce, Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company […], →OCLC

   2 more examples

   […] the news and propaganda in imperialistic papers imported once a month by the mail-boat from the South lacked power because it lacked continuity and was stale.

   1938, Xavier Herbert, chapter VIII, in Capricornia, New York: D. Appleton-Century, published 1943, page 120

   This train has to await the arrival at Kingsbridge of a train from Dun Laoghaire pier which leaves the latter on arrival of the mailboat from Holyhead.

   1939 July, “Overseas Railways: Timetable Alterations, G.S.R.”, in Railway Magazine, page 55

   Synonyms: mailship