Emailing

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. The process of sending digital messages over the internet involves written communication, transmission of information, and the use of electronic correspondence tools
2. The act of transmitting messages using electronic communication systems connected to the internet
3. The process where text or documents are sent from one user to another through digital networks

Etymology: The noun "email" is a shortening of "electronic mail," and the verb "emailing" grew out of it by analogy with "mail" in the older sense of sending something through the postal system. In other words, English first clipped the phrase into a noun and then turned that noun into a verb, so that to email someone came to mean what sending a letter had long meant, only electronically. The "mail" half of the compound is itself a word with a surprising past. It descends from Old English "mál," meaning a bargain or agreement, and later came to mean a bag or pouch, which is how a delivery of letters came to be called "the mail." The "e" is the abbreviation's only original contribution: it stood for "electronic," a term that carried a sense of modern marvel when the abbreviation appeared in the 1970s.

Synonyms: messaging, communicating