Skip to main content
Glite Dictionary
Addressograph

Addressograph

9.9
A machine that prints addresses on envelopes and letters
  • noun
  • Archaic
translation icon : dirección automática
  • Before the advent of digital printing, the addressograph was essential for large mailings.

Examples

  • I spend most of my time on the addressograph plates, small, inky oblongs that clacked like false teeth as I checked to see if they were in zip code order.

    Fiction book (2002)

  • Using the addressograph, the office was able to send out their holiday cards in one afternoon.

  • The growing list of names was put on the addressograph system that served the journal until the system was computerized in the 1970s.

    Academic text (1991)

  • The addressograph quickly printed hundreds of labels for the charity event.

Synonyms

addressing machine
vsAddressograph
  • Specialized
6.1

A machine that automatically prints addresses on envelopes or letters for mailing

has identical meaning but uses a different name form

Surface Forms

Addressograph singular
Addressographs plural

Morphology

Addressograph = address (semi-transparent) = address + graph

The word is built from the recognizable base 'address' plus the machine-forming element '-graph', but the specialized sense 'machine for printing addresses' is only partly predictable.

Etymology

Addressograph comes from address and -graph, where -graph means 'writing', as in autograph or photograph. So an Addressograph is a machine that 'writes' or prints many addresses quickly, which explains its name.