E-mail

From Fresh Dictionary

English

Etymology

From electronic + mail.

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ˈiːmeɪl/
• SAMPA: /"i:meIl/

Alternative spellings

• email

Noun

e-mail (countable and uncountable; plural e-mails)

1. (uncountable) A system for transferring messages from one computer to another, usually via a network.
   • He sent me his details via e-mail.
   • The advent of e-mail has simultaneously brought our society closer together and farther apart.
2. (countable; see Usage notes below) An e-mail message.
   • I am searching through my old e-mails.
   • He sent me several e-mails last week to that effect.
3. (uncountable; see Usage notes below) A quantity of e-mail messages.
   • I am searching through my old e-mail.
   • My inbox only allows 50 MB of e-mail at a time.

Usage notes

• The spellings e-mail and email are both in common use. The use of "email" is now more widespread, likely due to one less character and thus making it easier to write or type, and is becoming a standardized usage for most businesses and Internet users. In general, the hyphenated form is more likely to be considered proper by those who follow strict grammatical rules; however, as a recently coined word, it remains an unsettled matter at this point.
• As a contraction of electronic mail, some feel that e-mail should follow the same pluralization rules and be uncountable, prohibiting the forms e-mails and an e-mail. Others feel that it is not necessary for e-mail to maintain grammatical similarity to mail, and prefer to pluralize the term as a countable noun. This issue is hotly debated, but it is seldom considered incorrect to use the uncountable form.

Translations

system

message See e-mail message

See also

• snail mail
• webmail

cs:e-mail fr:e-mail it:e-mail ku:e-mail nl:e-mail pt:e-mail