Post: meanings, functions, and common uses

Postal service and delivery

In everyday language, the post or postal service refers to the organized system that collects, sorts and delivers mail. That network includes post offices, postal carriers, sorting centers and regulations that govern how letters and parcels move between senders and recipients. The institution that performs those tasks is often called the post or postal service.

Positions and places

As a workplace term, a post denotes a job, office, or formal appointment: someone may be appointed to a diplomatic post or asked to vacate a post if they leave a role. The word also names fixed locations used for commerce, safety or infrastructure. Examples include:

• Trading post — a small commercial center where goods and information were exchanged, especially in frontier or colonial contexts.
• Military post — a garrison, base or station where troops are assigned to live, train or defend an area.
• Utility pole — commonly called a pole or post, this vertical support carries electric lines, telephone cables and other utilities.
• A post as an employment position — for example, civil, diplomatic or corporate posts.

Computing senses

In computing the word appears in two unrelated, specialized forms. A Power‑On Self‑Test (abbreviated POST) is an automated check run by a computer or embedded device at startup to verify core hardware and firmware are functioning. Separately, the HTTP POST method is one of the request types used by web clients to submit data to a server; it differs from a GET request by sending data in the request body rather than the URL. The web method is often written simply as POST.

History, usage and distinctions

The many senses of post have developed over time as transport, administration and communication evolved. A post office or postal route grew from historical courier systems; trading posts and military posts arose from needs to project commerce and control into new territories. In modern usage, "to post" can also mean publishing a message online, as on a forum or social network, extending the sense of sending information to a public place. Context makes the intended meaning clear: a postal post refers to mail, a hired post to a job, and a computing POST to a technical operation.