postmaster general
2
5.5
- noun
- /ˈpoʊstˌmæs.tər ˈdʒɛn.ər.əl/
- Formal
:
director general de correos
- Jack Potter is the current postmaster general of the United States Postal Service.
- appointing postmaster general
- become postmaster general
- first postmaster general
Examples
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He named the first department secretaries and postmaster general, and appointed the first assistant postmaster general in 1789 and the second just two years later.
Academic text (2002) -
Based on the written comments, the letter from the postmaster general looks like a strongly worded overreaction.
Blog text (24) -
If this works, you get to be postmaster general.
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Now bear in mind that I myself am the grandson of a postmaster general, and I worked for a few years in a shipping company, so I generally respect the institution.
Blog text (8) -
She says that the new postmaster general is also just the president's hench men trying to hurt mail in voting.
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“The first postmaster general was Benjamin Franklin.
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He named the first department secretaries and postmaster general, and appointed the first assistant postmaster general in 1789 and the second just two years later.
Academic text (2002) -
l'm gonna call the Postmaster general-- lf he's not whacking off-- and report your potty mouth.
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The postmaster general oversees the operations and policies of the national postal service.
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Benjamin Franklin is known as the very first postmaster general in American history.
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is partly derivable: 'postmaster' (a postal official) combined with 'general' in the sense of 'chief' yields 'the chief national postal official', so there is a compositional link. However, 'general' is used postpositively and often known to learners as a military rank, and the syntactic/semantic pattern (as in 'attorney general') may be unfamiliar to a B1 learner, making the exact interpretation not fully predictable without exposure.
Etymology
Postmaster general comes from old mail systems where a 'post' was a stop for riders to change horses and a postmaster ran that stop, while general meant chief for the whole area. That's why the phrase means 'the official in charge of the national mail' today.