Postmark

//ˈpoʊstˌmɑɹk// noun, verb

noun, verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A marking made by a postal service on a delivery, usually indicating the place where and the date and time when the item was received or processed for the first time, mostly serving to cancel a postage stamp.

    "He looked at the mauve envelope doubtfully, and examined the postmark. "Where is Pudlington, James? and one might almost ask—why is Pudlington? No town has any right to such an offensive name.""

  2. 2
    a cancellation mark stamped on mail by postal officials; indicates the post office and date of mailing wordnet
Verb
  1. 1
    To apply a postmark on. transitive
  2. 2
    stamp with a postmark to indicate date and time of mailing wordnet

Example

More examples

"The postmark indicates that this letter was mailed a week ago."

Etymology

Compound of post + mark.

Related phrases

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.