Antispam

Part of speech: noun, adjective

Definitions

1. Intended to stop unwanted bulk electronic messages from reaching users ; relating to software or methods that filter out junk mail and advertising
2. Built to block unsolicited mass emails and similar messages ; describing tools or techniques that screen out unwanted promotional content
3. Designed to keep out junk communications sent in bulk ; referring to systems or filters that catch and remove unsolicited advertising messages

Etymology: "Antispam" is a plain compound: the prefix "anti-", meaning "against" or "opposed to", attached to "spam" to name measures designed to counter unwanted messages. The prefix descends from the Ancient Greek "anti", meaning "against" or "opposite", and reached English as a productive element that writers have attached to nearly any noun or adjective for more than a century. Its sense here is the familiar one: a thing that opposes or prevents its target. The base word carries the more colourful history. "Spam" for unsolicited bulk messages took its name from the Monty Python sketch in which a café menu repeats the tinned meat product until it crowds out everything else, which is the image of an inbox flooded with repeated junk. Because the two parts are so transparent, "antispam" needed no special coinage; it simply joins a standard prefix to a word that became common in the electronic-mail era.