mailing

Word family

• mail
  nounA2
• mail
  verbB1
• mailer
  nounB2
• e-mail
  nounA1

Synonym discussion

Sense: noun/1

Dispatch suggests speed and efficiency, and is typically used for goods, official documents, or emergency services — you dispatch a parcel or an ambulance, but you would not dispatch wedding invitations. Distribution focuses on the spreading of something across many points; a newspaper relies on distribution to reach shops, whereas mailing centres on the sending mechanism itself (post or email). Posting is the closest synonym but is distinctly British and almost always refers to physical postal mail — a Londoner might say 'the posting of the letters,' while an American would say 'the mailing of the letters.' For electronic messages, only mailing (or the more casual 'sending') works naturally: you can mail an e-newsletter but you would not post or dispatch one.

Common collocations

Etymology

Formed from the noun 'mail' (postal system) combined with the suffix '-ing', which turns the verb 'to mail' into a noun describing the action or its result. The word 'mail' itself entered English from Old French 'male', meaning a bag or wallet, and originally referred to the mailbag used by messengers. By the 17th century it came to mean the letters and parcels carried in that bag, and eventually the entire postal system. The noun 'mailing' emerged in the 19th century as postal services expanded and the need for a word describing the organized sending of items grew.