method of correspondence on the Internet, method of sending electronic letters over the Internet
E-mail (short for electronic mail; often also abbreviated as e-mail, email or simply mail) is a
store and forward method of composing, sending, storing, and receiving
messages over
electronic communication systems. The term "e-mail" (as a noun or verb) applies both to the
Internet e-mail system based on the
Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) and to
X.400 systems, and to
intranet systems allowing users within one organization to e-mail each other. Often these
workgroup collaboration organizations may use the
Internet protocols or X.400 protocols for internal e-mail service. E-mail is often used to deliver bulk unsolicited messages, or "spam", but filter programs exist which can automatically delete some or most of these, depending on the situation.
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An electronic means for communication in which (a) usually text is transmitted, (b) operations include sending, storing, processing, and receiving
information, (c) users are allowed to communicate under specified conditions, and (d) messages are held in
storage until called for by the addressee. (
188 )
<
messaging> (e-mail) Messages automatically passed from one computer user to another, often through computer
networks and/or via
modems over telephone lines.
A message, especially one following the common
RFC 822 standard, begins with several lines of
headers, followed by a blank line, and the body of the message. Most e-mail systems now support the
MIME standard which allows the message body to contain "
attachments" of different kinds rather than just one block of plain
ASCII text. It is conventional for the body to end with a
signature.
Headers give the name and
electronic mail address of the sender and recipient(s), the time and date when it was sent and a subject. There are many other headers which may get added by different
message handling systems during delivery.
The message is "composed" by the sender, usually using a special program - a "
Mail User Agent" (MUA). It is then passed to some kind of "
Message Transfer Agent" (MTA) - a program which is responsible for either delivering the message locally or passing it to another MTA, often on another
host. MTAs on different hosts on a network often communicate using
SMTP. The message is eventually delivered to the recipient's
mailbox - normally a file on his computer - from where he can read it using a mail reading program (which may or may not be the same
MUA as used by the sender).
Contrast
snail-mail,
paper-net,
voice-net.
The form "email" is also common, but is less suggestive of the correct pronunciation and derivation than "e-mail". The word is used as a noun for the concept ("Isn't e-mail great?", "Are you on e-mail?"), a collection of (unread) messages ("I spent all night reading my e-mail"), and as a verb meaning "to send (something in) an e-mail message" ("I'll e-mail you (my report)"). The use of "an e-mail" as a count noun for an e-mail message, and plural "e-mails", is now (2000) also well established despite the fact that "mail" is definitely a mass noun.
Oddly enough, the word "emailed" is actually listed in the Oxford English Dictionary. It means "embossed (with a raised pattern) or arranged in a net work". A use from 1480 is given. The word is derived from French "emmailleure", network. Also, "email" is German for enamel.
The story of the first e-mail message.
(2002-07-14)
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