letter drop

noun

1. (in a door or partition) a slot through which letters can be pushed.

Word History and Origins

Origin of letter drop¹

An Americanism dating back to 1885–90

Example Sentences

Clearly happy with the information they were receiving from Khalife, the Iranians arranged a second dead letter drop in October 2021 - this time £1,000 was left underneath a flower pot beside a mausoleum in a west London cemetery.

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“One of the most everyday and ordinary things you can do is buy stamps, mail a letter, drop a package off,” Mr. Bey said.

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“We traced it to a pickup point of a U.P.S. letter drop box by an office building in Westbury on Long Island,” wrote Susan Rosenberg, a U.P.S. spokeswoman.

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In a Moscow park in 2006, Britain's MI6 intelligence agency was caught red-handed with a "spy rock" - a fake rock containing a transmitter where informants could wirelessly leave information that could then be retrieved in a modern-day version of the dead letter drop.

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Thomas: I was similarly unmoved by the Bateses’ simultaneous letter drop.

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