letterbox
Also letter box .Chiefly British. a public or private mailbox.
Digital Technology, Television. a technique for displaying a wide-screen film or landscape video on a narrower screen by reducing its size but retaining the aspect ratio, with black bands filling the screen above and below the picture (often used attributively):letterbox videos.: Compare pan and scan, pillarbox (def. 1).
Digital Technology, Television. to display (a film or video) by using the letterbox technique.
Origin of letterbox
1Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
How to use letterbox in a sentence
There could be but one other person who would possess a key to the house and the letter-box—and he lives in St. Petersburg.
In the Fog | Richard Harding DavisSo she put a stamp on the envelope, and went downstairs herself, and dropped it into the letter-box.
The Angel of Pain | E. F. BensonIt was handed in with the others from the front door letter-box this morning in an unstamped envelope.
And once I had remembered that the very letter-box was set like teeth against the outer world.
Witching Hill | E. W. HornungI will take the liberty of dropping it in the letter-box at your hall-door as I go out.
British Dictionary definitions for letter box
a slot, usually covered with a hinged flap, through which letters, etc, are delivered to a building
a private box into which letters, etc, are delivered
Also called: postbox a public box into which letters, etc, are put for collection and delivery
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
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