POSTMARK

Pronunciation (US):

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does postmark mean? 

• POSTMARK (noun)
  The noun POSTMARK has 1 sense:

1. a cancellation mark stamped on mail by postal officials; indicates the post office and date of mailing

  Familiarity information: POSTMARK used as a noun is very rare.

• POSTMARK (verb)
  The verb POSTMARK has 1 sense:

1. stamp with a postmark to indicate date and time of mailing

  Familiarity information: POSTMARK used as a verb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• POSTMARK (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A cancellation mark stamped on mail by postal officials; indicates the post office and date of mailing

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Hypernyms ("postmark" is a kind of...):

mark; marker; marking (a distinguishing symbol)

Derivation:

postmark (stamp with a postmark to indicate date and time of mailing)

• POSTMARK (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they postmark    ... he / she / it postmarks   
Past simple: postmarked   
Past participle: postmarked   
-ing form: postmarking   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Stamp with a postmark to indicate date and time of mailing

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Synonyms:

frank; postmark

Hypernyms (to "postmark" is one way to...):

stamp (to mark, or produce an imprint in or on something)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Derivation:

postmark (a cancellation mark stamped on mail by postal officials; indicates the post office and date of mailing)

 Context examples 

The envelope was postmarked "San Leandro."

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

“I burned it,” replied Jekyll, “before I thought what I was about. But it bore no postmark. The note was handed in.”

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

It bore the London postmark, and came from Edmund.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

Did you remark the postmarks of those letters? The first was from Pondicherry, the second from Dundee, and the third from London. From East London.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

When I called on Wednesday there was a letter with the West Kensington postmark upon it, and my name scrawled across the envelope in a handwriting which looked like a barbed-wire railing.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

A letter arrived for my father yesterday evening, bearing the Fordingbridge postmark.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

“Strand postmark, and dispatched ten thirty-six,” said Holmes, reading it over and over.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

‘From Dundee,’ I answered, glancing at the postmark.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

“The postmark is London—eastern division. Within are the very words which were upon my father’s last message: ‘K. K. K.’; and then ‘Put the papers on the sundial.’”

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The envelope was a very coarse one and was stamped with the Gravesend postmark and with the date of that very day, or rather of the day before, for it was considerably after midnight.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)