mail train
1
2.6
- noun
- Archaic
:
tren de correo
- That night we were in Council Bluffs, Omaha, and by chance got passage on the new fast mail train, which had been put on as an experiment in time across the continent, and was carrying only one sleeper and the General Manager's private car.
Examples
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The mail train left the station at 10 PM, transporting letters and packages across the country.
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but then the late mail train came in.
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One of the small Vatican mail trains bullets across an indoor track.
Fiction book (1991) -
Mail trains from Dublin began to run through to the port from 1876 and continued to do so until 1922.
Academic text (1993) -
In the early 20th century, a dedicated mail train would make daily runs to ensure that important correspondence arrived on time.
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The city invested in modernizing the mail train system to improve efficiency and speed for postal deliveries.
How Big
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'a train that transports mail' is directly and transparently derived from combining 'mail' (postal items) and 'train' (rail vehicle). This straightforward noun compound follows common compositional patterns found across languages, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents will readily infer the MWE's meaning.
Etymology
Mail train comes from the simple idea of a train carrying mail, with cars full of letters and packages running quickly between cities so the post could move fast. So it means 'a train that is used to transport mail'.