mail-order

[meyl-awr-der]

adjective

pertaining to or obtained by mail order: a dozen mail-order rosebushes.

verb (used with object)

to order (merchandise) by mail: to mail-order fruitcakes for Christmas.

RELATED WORDS

teleshopping

Nearby words

Origin of mail-order

First recorded in 1865–70

mail order

noun

an order for goods received or shipped through the mail.

the business of selling merchandise through the mail.

Origin of mail order

An Americanism dating back to 1865–70

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Examples from the Web for mail-order

Meet the psychics preying on the elderly with a mail-order moneymaking gig that netted them millions a year.
The Multimillion ‘Clairvoyance by Mail’ Scam|Jacob Siegel|November 21, 2014|DAILY BEAST
The mail-order business took off, so he closed the magazine and started a record shop.
Can Richard Branson Bounce Back From His Space Disaster?|Tom Sykes|November 3, 2014|DAILY BEAST
Jason is a particular breed himself, a mail-order salesman of animals.
The Weird Underground World of Urban Animal Husbandry|Dale Eisinger|May 19, 2014|DAILY BEAST
Johnson has had his scandals, but he is not the kind of man to go out with a Russian mail-order bride.
Boris Johnson Is Right: Some Women Go to College to Find a Husband|Janine di Giovanni|July 9, 2013|DAILY BEAST

Next to his desk, which does not have computer on it, swims a frog he grew from a mail-order tadpole.
Inside an Oklahoma Abortion Clinic|Allison Yarrow|January 22, 2013|DAILY BEAST
We found the company in Chicago and later the mail-order slip that had been sent by Oswald to Chicago to get the gun.
Warren Commission (5 of 26): Hearings Vol. V (of 15)|The President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy
Buyers of fancy stock prefer to deal directly with producers, and the greater part of the business is mail-order business.
Our Domestic Birds|John H. Robinson
It was for all the world like the pictures one saw in mail-order catalogues, he thought with a smile.
The Trail of Conflict|Emilie Baker Loring
The mail-order trade grew up side by side with the store trade.
How Department Stores Are Carried On|W. B. Phillips
For some years it was operated in a conservative way by a man who had had years of experience in the mail-order business.
Analyzing Character|Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb

British Dictionary definitions for mail-order

mail order

noun

an order for merchandise sent by post

a system of buying and selling merchandise through the post
(as modifier)a mail-order firm

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

Word Origin and History for mail-order

mail-order

adj.

1875, from mail (n.1) + order. Before television and the Internet, the bane of retailers and shop-owners.

The origin, foundation and principle of mail order trading is universally recognized as wrong. It was conceived in iniquity and brought forth in despair as the world's greatest destructive medium. Mail Order Trading was born in the brain of knaves and thieves who fired their building for insurance profits, then sold the salvaged and damaged stock to the unsuspecting sons of man in distant territory. [Thomas J. Sullivan, "Merchants and Manufacturers on Trial," Chicago, 1914]

mail-order

adjective

verb (used with object)

RELATED CONTENT

RELATED WORDS

Nearby words

Origin of mail-order

mail order

noun

Origin of mail order

Examples from the Web for mail-order

mail order

noun

mail-order