(in Britain until 1969) the department of the central Government that provided postal and telephone services
the main post office in a locality
First recorded in 1650–60
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
For 30 years, he was a United States Postal Service employee, toiling mostly in the vast mail-sorting room beyond the imposing columns of what was New York City’s general post office in Midtown Manhattan.
From New York Times ● Sep. 18, 2022
The hall occupies what was once a mail-sorting room in the city’s general post office.
From Washington Post ● Aug. 25, 2021
Another 500 occupied the general post office, 200 moved into the Civic Art Gallery and there they stayed one month.
From Time Magazine Archive
The material on which the chapter is founded has been gathered from the records of the general post office, and the legislative papers of the colony.
From The History of the Post Office in British North America by Smith, William, Sir
The conditions were that he was to set up a general post office at some convenient place, and settle one or more sub-post offices in each county.
From The History of the Post Office in British North America by Smith, William, Sir
It turned out to be the Fullerton Hotel, which first opened in 1928 as the General Post Office.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 27, 2025
First: It converts what used to be a mail-sorting hall inside the James A. Farley Building, formerly the General Post Office, across Eighth Avenue from Penn Station.
From New York Times ● Jan. 11, 2021
Nearby is the General Post Office, where, shortly before the 1916 Easter Rising, Patrick Pearse stood outside its doors and read the impassioned Proclamation of the Irish Republic.
From Washington Times ● Oct. 14, 2019
The "hand-microphone" of 1933 - allegedly popularly known as the "handy" - was coveted by well-to-do Brits, who were urged to write to the General Post Office in London to order one.
From BBC ● Dec. 23, 2018
My father, who worked as a clerk at the General Post Office of Calcutta, died of encephalitis when I was sixteen.
From "Interpreter of Maladies" by Jhumpa Lahiri
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
