< 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)