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Glite Dictionary
📪 Undeliverable mail 📜 No longer valid rule
dead letter

dead letter

1 7.7
A piece of mail that cannot be delivered or returned to the sender
  • noun
  • /dɛd ˈlɛtər/
translation icon : carta muerta
  • Many dead letters pile up at the post office every year.

Examples

  • At the dead letter office, we sort mail that can neither be delivered nor returned.

  • This dead letter has no return address.

  • After months of searching, her lost package was declared a dead letter.

  • Every year, thousands of dead letters accumulate due to incorrect addresses.

  • The post office has a special department for handling dead letters.

  • After months in the dead letter office, her lost package was finally located.

  • The postal workers at the dead letter office try to find the correct addresses for undeliverable mail.

Synonyms

dead mail
vsdead letter
  • US
7.2

Mail that cannot be delivered or returned to its sender

has identical meaning but is an alternative phrase form

Surface Forms

dead letter singular
dead letters plural

Morphology

dead + letter

The adjective 'dead' (no longer functioning) combined with 'letter' (a written text) gives a plausible inferential route to 'a written rule that no longer has effect', so part of the meaning is derivable from the parts. However, the crucial sense of 'letter' as 'the wording of a law or rule' is somewhat specialized and the phrase is a conventional legal/idiomatic usage, so a B1 learner who only knows 'letter' as a mailed message may not reliably infer the intended meaning without exposure.

Etymology

Dead letter comes from old post offices: a letter was called dead when it could not be delivered to the recipient or returned to the sender, so it had no use. So dead letter means 'a piece of mail that cannot be delivered'.