post office box

See also: post-office box and postal office box

English

Post office boxes in the East Bay Post Office

Alternative forms

• post-office box

Pronunciation

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

Noun

post office box (plural post office boxes)

1. A uniquely addressable lockable box located on the premises of a post office that may be hired as collection point for mail.

   Synonyms: PO box, postal box

   Hypernyms: mailbox, post box

   Coordinate terms: mailbox, mail slot, mailslot, letterbox

   • 2022, Bonnie Garmus, Lessons in Chemistry, Penguin (2023), page 307:

     “Rich people use post office boxes to shield themselves from unwanted correspondence. It’s like a garbage can for mail.”

2. (electricity) A test instrument once used by telephone engineers.

Translations

box hired as collection point for mail

• Basque: posta kutxatila
• Bulgarian: пощенска кутия f (poštenska kutija)
• Burmese: စာတိုက်သေတ္တာ (my) (catuiksetta)
• Catalan: apartat de correus m
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 郵政信箱 / 邮政信箱 (zh) (yóuzhèng xìnxiāng)

• Czech: poštovní přihrádka (cs) f
• Danish: postboks
• Dutch: postbus (nl) f
• Finnish: postilokero (fi)
• French: boîte postale (fr) f, case postale (fr) f (Switzerland)
• German: Postfach (de) n
• Greek: ταχυδρομική θυρίδα f (tachydromikí thyrída)
• Hungarian: postafiók (hu)
• Indonesian: kotak pos (id)
• Italian: casella postale
• Japanese: 私書箱 (ja) (ししょばこ, shishobako)
• Khmer: ប្រអប់ប្រៃសណីយ៍ (prɑʼɑp praysaʼnii)
• Korean: 사서함(私書函) (ko) (saseoham)
• Manx: kishtey post m, kishtey screeuyn m
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: postboks m

  Nynorsk: postboks m

• Persian: صندوق پستی (sanduq-e posti)
• Polish: skrytka pocztowa (pl) f
• Portuguese: caixa de coleta f
• Romanian: căsuță poștală (ro) f
• Russian: абоне́нтский я́щик (ru) m (abonéntskij jáščik)
• Spanish: apartado postal m, apartado de correos m
• Swedish: postbox (sv) c
• Tagalog: kahong koreo
• Ukrainian: абонеме́нтна скри́нька f (aboneméntna skrýnʹka), абоне́нтська скри́нька f (abonéntsʹka skrýnʹka)

See also

• safe-deposit box

Further reading

• post office box on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• post office box (electricity) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia