Mailbox

3 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  mailbox \mail"box`\ n.
     1. A public box for deposit of mail, where it is later picked
        up by the postal authority for delivery.
  
     Syn: postbox, letter box.
          [WordNet 1.5]


  
     2. A private box to recieve delivery of mail. The term is
        used both for boxes receiving mail delivered by the public
        postal authority, or by a private services, such as for
        mail to employees in large corporations.
  
     Syn: letter box.
          [WordNet 1.5 +PJC]
  
     3. (Computers) A location within a computer storage device
        where electronic mail is held until it is retrieved by the
        addressee. Creation and use of an electronic mailbox
        requires special software as well as a data storage
        device.
        [PJC]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  mailbox
       n 1: a private box for delivery of mail [syn: {letter box}]
       2: public box for deposit of mail [syn: {postbox}, {letter box}]

From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (27 SEP 03) [foldoc]:

  mailbox
       
          1.  A file belonging to a particular user on a
          particular computer in which received {electronic mail}
          messages are stored ready for the user to read them.  A
          mailbox may be just an {electronic mail address} to which
          messages are sent and may not actually correspond to a file if
          the messages are processed automatically, e.g. a {mail server}
          or {mailing list}.
       
          2.  A destination for interprocess messages in a
          {message passing} system.  A mailbox is a {message} queue,
          usually stored in the memory of the processor on which the
          receiving process is running.  {Primitives} are provided for
          sending a message to a named mailbox and for reading messages
          from a mailbox.
       
          (1994-10-20)