Other forms: emails
An email is an electronic letter sent from one inbox to another. Send an email, check your email, an email address.
The at sign was chosen in 1971 because it was the only preposition on the keyboard and almost nothing else used it. The word works as a noun and a verb and no longer takes a hyphen. Email is not private by default — it crosses several machines in plain sight.
1nounemailAn electronic letter sent between inboxes.
“I'll send you an email with all the details tonight.”
email is a message.
Also accepted in games: mail, e-mail
Short for electronic mail, from the 1970s. The verb came from the noun.
Built from
From electronic mail. The noun is an abbreviation of electronic mail. 1970s. The verb is derived from the noun, by analogy with mail (“to send through the mail”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA