Postcard Definition: Pronunciation and Popular Collocations

People don’t send postcards much anymore, maybe tourists do. However, you still can do it for fun to greet your friends and relatives. These instances will allow you to define “postcard” in different contexts:

There aren’t really “postcard” synonyms, so you need to stick to this word. It will also be useful to get familiar with some connected terminology to describe a postcard.

Related nouns: greeting card picture card mail

Synonyms (contextual): none, it’s a specific noun

Common collocations: vintage postcard picture postcard postcard view

Some words just go together with this term perfectly, and you will hear them paired up constantly once you start noticing. It will make your understanding of “postcard” description better.

With adjectives: old postcard colorful postcard picture postcard blank postcard

With verbs: send a postcard write a postcard receive a postcard collect postcards

With nouns (noun + noun): postcard collection postcard size

There are a couple of phrases people use that are specific and should be explained separately because the meaning of “postcard” differs from the one above.

• Postcard-perfect — when a place looks so pretty it doesn’t seem real, like someone photoshopped it.

  That Swiss village was postcard-perfect. I’ll show you the photo. He proposed to me there.

• Drop someone a postcard — sending a quick note while you’re traveling.

  I’ll drop you a postcard when I get to Amsterdam. But there won’t be many words. I’m not a good writer.

Let’s see what you know about what a “postcard” means. Complete these exercises and check your answers.

Here’s how you spell “postcard” in other European languages. By knowing this word, you won’t need to worry about whether a cashier knows English or not.

Postcards have an odd history, and most people have no clue about any of this. Let’s go over these facts to understand how people communicated before the Internet.

• In 1869 an Austrian guy invented them.

  Emanuel Herrmann found letters too inconvenient. He presented this easier card option to Austria’s postal service. It was tested and – Boom! – millions went out in no time. Other nations were watching the event and immediately imitated it.

• The first postcards were open to everybody.

  No privacy whatsoever. Postal workers, sorters, and everyone else who handled them could see what you wrote. People, however, still used them for private matters. Love letters, complaints, gossip, everything.

• The act of collecting postcards is termed deltiology.

  There are many people who consider the collection of vintage postcards as a serious hobby. The prices of rare ones are exorbitant. Michael Shefers from Germany has a collection of postcards that includes more than 15000 cards.

• Cities used to have mail delivered more than once a day.

  In cities such as London or New York, you could post something in the morning and it would reach its destination the same day. A series of deliveries occurred daily. Now it takes a long time, sometimes days or weeks.

Postcards rarely appear in quotes in the works of modern writers; however, there were many mentions of them in the stories of writers of the past.