post box

plural post boxes · alternative postbox

1. postalA box in which post can be left by a sender to be picked up by a courier or postman (postal worker).

   Would you take these letters down to the post box please – they've already got stamps.

   4 more examples

   Many large organisations have post box numbers. Mail from anywhere in the country is collected and delivered to this one address. What more could Post do to provide further value? While delivery of the mail to the post box is reliable, there are subsequent delays of, at times, a week before the mail arrives at the desk of the person within the recipient organisation.

   2000, Peter Vervest with Al Dunn, How to Win Customers in the Digital World: Total Action or Fatal Inaction, Berlin: Springer-Verlag, →ISBN, page 203

   The "post-box solution" was a proposal that the Commonwealth Prime Minister act as a "post-box", passing on State advice to the Queen without altering it or commenting on it. The Queen would receive advice from one source only, but it would be the States that were effectively advising the Queen on State matters. This solution was satisfactory to the British Government, Buckingham Palace and the Governor-General.

   2006, George Winterton, editor, State Constitutional Landmarks, Sydney: Federation Press, →ISBN, page 291

   And so Helen had been running and not thinking clearly and, pushing one envelope through the slot in the postbox, she turned swiftly to walk into Robert's shop.

   2008, Stella Duffy, chapter 33, in The Room of Lost Things, London: Virago Press, →ISBN

   Three small gelignite bombs, with pocket watch timing devices, were concealed in packets small enough to fit through the slot of the standard cast-iron post box, the cylindrical bright red colored boxes so common throughout London.

   2008, Steven P. Moysey, The Road to Balcombe Street: The IRA Reign of Terror in London, Binghamton, N.Y.: Haworth Press, →ISBN, page 58

   Synonyms: letterbox, mailbox

2. A box or slot into which a courier or postal worker puts letters for a recipient to collect.

   Synonyms: letterbox, mailbox