King James Bible Dictionary

1. A runner, or courier, for the rapid transmission of letters, etc. (2 Chronicles 30:6; Esther 3:13, 15; 8:10, 14; Job 9:25; Jeremiah 51:31). Such messengers were used from very early times. Those employed by the Hebrew kings had a military character (1 Samuel 22:17; 2 Kings 10:25, "guard," marg. "runners"). The modern system of postal communication was first established by Louis XI. of France in A.D. 1464.

2. This word sometimes also is used for lintel or threshold (Isaiah 6:4).

A bearer of message
Job 9:25; Jeremiah 51:31

Of Hezekiah
2 Chronicles 30:6; 2 Chronicles 30:10

Of Ahasuerus
Esther 3:13; Esther 3:15; Esther 8:10; Esther 8:14

1. Probably, as Gesenius argues, the door-case of a door, including the lintel and side posts. The posts of the doors of the temple were of olive wood. (1 Kings 6:33)
2. A courier or carrier of messages, used among other places in (Job 9:25)

POST, adjective Suborned; hired to do what is wrong. [Not in use.]

POST, noun [Latin postis, from positus, the given participle of pono, to place.]

1. A piece of timber set upright, usually larger than a stake, and intended to support something else; as the posts of a house; the posts of a door; the posts of a gate; the posts of a fence.

2. A military station; the place where a single soldier or a body of troops is stationed. The sentinel must not desert his post The troops are ordered to defend the post Hence,

3. The troops stationed in a particular place, or the ground they occupy.

4. A public office or employment, that is, a fixed place or station.

When vice prevails and impious men bear sway,

The post of honor is a private station.

5. A messenger or a carrier of letters and papers; one that goes at stated times to convey the mail or dispatches. This sense also denotes fixedness, either from the practice of using relays of horses stationed at particular places, or of stationing men for carrying dispatches, or from the fixed stages where they were to be supplied with refreshment. [See Stage.] Xenophon informs us the Cyrus, king of Persia, established such stations or houses.

6. A seat or situation.

7. A sort of writing paper, such as is used for letters; letter paper.

8. An old game at cards.

To ride post to be employed to carry dispatches and papers, and as such carriers rode in haste, hence the phrase signifies to ride in haste, to pass with expedition. post is used also adverbially, for swiftly, expeditiously, or expressly.

Sent from Media post to Egypt.

Hence, to travel post is to travel expeditiously by the use of fresh horses taken at certain stations.

Knight of the post a fellow suborned or hired to do a bad action.

POST, verb intransitive To travel with speed.

And post o'er land and ocean without rest.

POST, verb transitive To fix to a post; as, to post a notification.

1. To expose to public reproach by fixing the name to a post; to expose to opprobrium by some public action; as, to post a coward.

2. To advertise on a post or in a public place; as, to post a stray horse.

3. To set; to place; to station; as, to post troops on a hill, or in front or on the flank of an army.

4. In book-keeping, to carry accounts from the waste-book or journal to the ledger.

To post off, to put off; to delay. [Not used.]

POST, a Latin preposition, signifying after. It is used in this sense in composition in many English words.

POSTABLE, adjective That may be carried. [Not used.]

POSTAGE, noun The price established by law to be paid for the conveyance of a letter in a public mail.

1. A portage. [Not used.]

POSTBOY, noun A boy that rides as post; a courier.

POST-CHAISE, noun [See Chaise.] A carriage with four wheels for the conveyance of travelers.

POSTDA'TE, verb transitive [Latin post, after, and date, Latin datum.]

To date after the real time; as, to postdate a contract, that is, to date it after the true time of making the contract.

POSTDILU'VIAL

POSTDILU'VIAN, adjective [Latin post, after, and diluvium, the deluge.]

Being or happening posterior to the flood in Noah's days.

POSTDILU'VIAN, noun A person who lived after the flood, or who has lived since that event.

POST-DISSE'IZIN, noun A subsequent disseizin. A writ of post-disseizin is intended to put in possession a person who has been disseized after a judgment to recover the same lands of the same person, under the statute of Merton.

POST-DISSE'IZOR, noun A person who disseizes another of lands which he had before recovered of the same person.

POSTEA, noun [Latin] The record of what is done in a cause subsequent to the joining of issue and awarding of trial.

POSTED, participle passive Placed; stationed.

1. Exposed on a post or by public notice.

2. Carried to a ledger, as accounts.

POSTER, noun One who posts; also, a courier; one that travels expeditiously.

POSTE'RIOR, adjective [from Latin posterus, from post.]

1. Later or subsequent in time.

Hesiod was posterior to Homer.

2. Later in the order of proceeding or moving; coming after. [Unfrequent.]

POSTERIOR'ITY, noun The state of being later or subsequent; as posteriority of time or of an event; opposed to priority.

POSTE'RIORS, noun plural The hinder parts of an animal body.

POSTER'ITY, noun [Latin posteritas, from posterus, from post, after.]

1. Descendants; children, children's children, etc. indefinitely; the race that proceeds from a progenitor. The whole human race are the posterity of Adam.

2. In a general sense, succeeding generations; opposed to ancestors.

To the unhappy that unjustly bleed,

Heav'n gives posterity t' avenge the deed.

POSTERN, noun [Latin post, behind.]

1. Primarily, a back door or gate; a private entrance; hence, any small door or gate.

2. In fortification , a small gate, usually in the angle of the flank of a bastion, or in that of the curtain or near the orillon, descending into the ditch.

POSTERN, adjective Back; being behind; private.

POST-EXIST'ENCE, noun Subsequent or future existence.

POST-FINE, noun In English law, a fine due to the king by prerogative, after a licentia concordandi given in a fine of lands and tenements; called also the king's silver.

POSTFIX, noun [Latin post, after, and fix.] In grammar, a letter, syllable or word added to the end of another word; a suffix.

POSTFIX', verb transitive To add or annex a letter, syllable or word, to the end of another or principal word.

POSTFIX'ED, participle passive Added to the end of a word.

POSTFIX'ING, participle present tense Adding to the end of a word.

POST-HACK'NEY, noun [post and hackney.] A hired posthorse.

POST-HASTE, noun Haste or speed in traveling, like that of a post or courier.

POST-HASTE, adverb With speed or expedition. He traveled post-haste that is, by an ellipsis, with post-haste

POST-HORSE, noun A horse stationed for the use of couriers.

POST-HOUSE, noun A house where a post-office is kept for receiving and dispatching letters by public mails; a post-office.

[The latter word is now in general use.]

POST'HUME, adjective Posthumous. [Not used.]

POST'HUMOUS, adjective [Latin post, after, and humus, earth; humatus, buried.]

1. Born after the death of the father, or taken from the dead body of the mother; as a posthumous son or daughter.

2. Published after the death of the author; as posthumous works.

3. Being after one's decease; as a posthumous character.

POST'HUMOUSLY, adverb After one's decease.

POSTIC, adjective [Latin posticus.] Backward. [Not used.]

POS'TIL, noun [Latin post.] A marginal note; originally, a note in the margin of the Bible, so called because written after the text.

POS'TIL, verb transitive To write marginal notes; to gloss; to illustrate with marginal notes.

POS'TILER, noun One who writes marginal notes; one who illustrates the text of a book by notes in the margin.

POSTILLION, noun postil'yon. One that rides and guides the first pair of horses in a coach or other carriage; also, one that rides one of the horses, when one pair only is used, either in a coach or post-chaise.

POSTING, participle present tense Setting up on a post; exposing the name or character to reproach by public advertisement.

1. Placing; stationing.

2. Transferring accounts to a ledger.

POSTLIMIN'IAR

POSTLIMIN'IOUS, adjective [See Postliminium.] Contrived, done or existing subsequently; as a post-liminious application.

POSTLIMIN'IUM

POSTLIM'INY, noun [Latin post, after, and limen, end, limit.]

Postliminium, among the Romans, was the return of a person to his own country who had gone to sojourn in a foreign country, or had been banished or taken by an enemy.

In the modern law of nations, the right of postliminy is that by virtue of which, persons and things taken by an enemy in war, are restored to their former state, when coming again under the power of the nation to which they belonged. The sovereign of a country is bound to protect the person and the property of his subjects; and a subject who has suffered the loss of his property by the violence of war, on being restored to his country, can claim to be re-established in all his rights, and to recover his property. But this right does not extend, in all cases, to personal effects or movables, on account of the difficulty of ascertaining their identity.

POSTMAN, noun A post or courier; a letter-carrier.

POSTMARK, noun The mark or stamp of a post-office on a letter.

POSTMASTER, noun The officer who has the superintendence and direction of a post-office.

POSTMASTER-general, is the chief officer of the post-office department, whose duty is to make contracts for the conveyance of the public mails and see that they are executed, and who receives the moneys arising from the postage of letters, pays the expenses, keeps the accounts of the office, and superintends the whole department.

POSTMERID'IAN, adjective [Latin postmeridianus. See Meridian.]

Being or belonging to the afternoon; as postmeridian sleep.

POSTNATE, adjective [Latin post, after, and natus, born.] Subsequent. [Little used.]

POST-NOTE, noun [post and note.] In commerce, a bank note intended to be transmitted to a distant place by the public mail, and made payable to order. In this it differs from a common bank note, which is payable to the bearer.

POSTNUPTIAL, adjective [post and nuptial.] Being or happening after marriage; as a postnuptial settlement on a wife.

POST-OFFICE, noun An office or house where letters are received for delivery to the persons to whom they are addressed, or to be transmitted to other places in the public mails; a post-house.

POST-PAID, adjective Having the postage paid on; as a letter.

POSTPO'NE, verb transitive [Latin postpono; post, after, and pono, to put.]

1. To put off; to defer to a future or later time; to delay; as, to postpone the consideration of a bill or question to the afternoon, or to the following day.

2. To set below something else in value or importance.

All other considerations should give way and be postponed to this.

POSTPO'NED, participle passive Delayed; deferred to a future time; set below in value.

POSTPO'NEMENT, noun The act of deferring to a future time; temporary delay of business.

POSTP0'NENCE, noun Dislike. [Not in use.]

POSTPO'NING, participle present tense Deferring to a future time.

POSTPOSI'TION, noun [post and position.] The state of being put back or out of the regular place.

POSTREMO'TE, adjective [post and remote.] More remote in subsequent time or order.

POSTSCRIPT, noun [Latin post, after, and scriptum, written.]

A paragraph added to a letter after it is concluded and signed by the writer; or any addition made to a book or composition after it had been supposed to be finished, containing something omitted, or something new occurring to the writer.

POST-TOWN, noun A town in which a post-office is established by law.

1. A town in which post-horses are kept.

POS'TULANT, noun [See Postulate.] One who makes demand.

POS'TULATE, noun [Latin postulatum, from postulo, to demand, from the root of posco, to ask or demand. The sense is to urge or push.]

A position or supposition assumed without proof, or one which is considered as self-evident, or too plain to require illustration.

A self-evident problem, answering to axiom, which is a self-evident theorem.

POS'TULATE, verb transitive [supra.] To beg or assume without proof. [Little used.]

1. To invite; to solicit; to require by entreaty.

2. To assume; to take without positive consent.

The Byzantine emperors appear to have exercised, or at least to have postulated a sort of paramount supremacy over this nation.

POSTULA'TION, noun [Latin postulatio.] The act of supposing without proof; gratuitous assumption.

1. Supplication; intercession; also, suit; cause.

POS'TULATORY, adjective Assuming without proof.

1. Assumed without proof.

POSTULA'TUM, noun [Latin] A postulate, which see.

POS'TURE, noun [Latin positura; pono, positus.]

1. In painting and sculpture, attitude; the situation of a figure with regard to the eye, and of the several principal members with regard to each other, by which action is expressed. Postures should be accommodated to the character of the figure, and the posture of each member to its office. Postures are natural or artificial. Natural postures are such as our ordinary actions and the occasions of life lead us to exhibit; artificial postures are such as are assumed or learnt for particular purposes, or in particular occupations, as in dancing, fencing, etc.

2. Situation; condition; particular state with regard to something else; as the posture of public affairs before or after a war.

3. Situation of the body; as an abject posture

4. State; condition. The fort is in a posture of defense.

5. The situation or disposition of the several parts of the body with respect to each other, or with respect to a particular purpose.

He casts

His eyes against the moon in most strange postures.

The posture of a poetic figure is the description of the heroes in the performance of such or such an action.

6. Disposition; frame; as the posture of the soul.

POS'TURE, verb transitive To place in a particular manner; to dispose the parts of a body for a particular purpose.

He was raw with posturing himself according to the direction of the chirurgeons.

POS'TURE-MASTER, noun One that teaches or practices artificial postures of the body.