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• postage stamp
  postage stamp

  noun

  a small gummed label issued by postal authorities that can be affixed to an envelope, postcard, or package as evidence that postal charges have been paid.
• postage-stamp
  postage-stamp

  adjective

  of very small area or size.

postage stamp

¹ American  

noun

• postage stamps
  plural

1. a small gummed label issued by postal authorities that can be affixed to an envelope, postcard, or package as evidence that postal charges have been paid.

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postage-stamp ² American  

[poh-stij-stamp] / ˈpoʊ stɪdʒˌstæmp /

adjective

Informal.

1. of very small area or size.

   a postage-stamp bikini.

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postage stamp British  

noun

1. a printed paper label with a gummed back for attaching to mail as an official indication that the required postage has been paid

2. a mark directly printed or embossed on an envelope, postcard, etc, serving the same function

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• postage stamps
  plural

Etymology

Origin of postage stamp¹

First recorded in 1830–40

Origin of postage-stamp²

First recorded in 1960–65

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

postage stamp postage-stamp

A postage stamp shows the vessel in operation at the time.

From BBC ● Jun. 14, 2026

The analogy is shrinking a 4K image to the size of a postage stamp — except the picture is still 4K.

From MarketWatch ● Apr. 6, 2026

Since then, everything has gone up dramatically in cost—from the price of a postage stamp or slice of pizza to the cost of a home or college tuition.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 19, 2026

It is about the size of a postage stamp and thinner than a credit card.

From Science Daily ● Dec. 8, 2025

He and Aunt Gloria walked up to our front door through our front garden, which Mum says is the size of a postage stamp.

From "The London Eye Mystery" by Siobhan Dowd

By their very nature, tall and fast bowlers can leak runs and are more likely to if there is a postage-stamp boundary on one half of the ground.

From BBC ● Dec. 4, 2024

Now — in a tidy, safe community of three-bedroom houses and postage-stamp lawns, pieces of the American Dream — they were facing down a tornado.

From Washington Post ● Dec. 15, 2021

From there, and in no particular order, the head of a woman in a leather pilot’s cap appears against clouds, an image as heroic as a postage-stamp; then we see her tumbling through space.

From New York Times ● Mar. 11, 2021

Now our world actually is small, centered around our compact city house with its postage-stamp sized backyard.

From Washington Times ● Mar. 31, 2020

“I can try wetting it with the postage-stamp glue in the next batch,” I proposed.

From "October Sky" by Homer Hickam