Meaning & use
dispatch mail
Last updated
Meanings
noununcountable
Mail that is being sent out, especially official or business letters and packages.
Grammar: Uncountable, so it has no plural form: say 'dispatch mail is ready', not 'dispatch mails are ready'.
Patterns
- dispatch mail for someone
- send dispatch mail
- process dispatch mail
All dispatch mail must be taken to the post room by 4 p.m.
The clerk sorted the dispatch mail into piles by country.
phrasefixed phrasebusiness
The act or process of sending out mail, especially in a company or post office.
Grammar: Used as a fixed noun phrase after verbs like 'handle', 'manage' or 'be responsible for'.
Patterns
- handle dispatch mail
- be responsible for dispatch mail
- dispatch mail procedures
She is responsible for dispatch mail in the sales department.
Our dispatch mail system was upgraded last month.
Common combinations
- dispatch mail room
- The dispatch mail room is on the ground floor.
- dispatch mail service
- The company uses a private dispatch mail service.
- sort dispatch mail
- Two workers sort dispatch mail every morning.
- outgoing dispatch mail
- Outgoing dispatch mail is collected at noon.
Synonyms and how they differ
- outgoing mail
- A more general term for letters and packages being sent; 'dispatch mail' often suggests a business or official process.
- correspondence
- More formal and usually refers to letters themselves rather than the sending process.
Opposites
Word family
- dispatch verb
- To send something somewhere, especially quickly or officially.
- dispatcher noun
- A person whose job is to send out vehicles, workers or messages.
Commonly confused: dispatch mail or despatch mail?
dispatch mail vs despatch mail
The British spelling of the same phrase; both are correct, but use one spelling consistently in a document.
Practice
Which sentence uses 'dispatch mail' correctly?
Choose one answer.
'Dispatch mail' is uncountable, so it takes a singular verb or no article, and 'handles' is the correct third-person verb. Option An is wrong because uncountable nouns do not take 'are' in this way, and option D wrongly adds 'a' and a plural.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “dispatch mail”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.