Glossary
Postmaster Terms & Vocabulary
15 essential postmaster terms with plain-English definitions: the vocabulary you’ll hear in training and on day one.
Key postmaster vocabulary
These 15 terms come up constantly in postmaster training, on the job and in interviews. Knowing them helps you follow instructions, document accurately and sound prepared.
- Casing
- Sorting mail for a route.
- City carrier
- Urban route carrier.
- Dispatch
- Sending mail out.
- DPS
- Delivery point sequenced mail.
- Mail class
- First-Class, Priority and more.
- PO Box
- Post office box.
- Postage
- Mailing fee.
- Route
- Carrier’s delivery path.
- Rural carrier
- Rural route carrier.
- Scan compliance
- Scanning packages correctly.
- Service standard
- Delivery time goal.
- Tracking
- Following a package.
- USPS
- United States Postal Service.
- Window clerk
- Retail clerk.
- ZIP Code
- Postal code.
Practice these terms
Test yourself with the free Postmaster practice test: it includes vocabulary questions built from this list. For a complete course, see Postmaster training.
Browse terms from every career in our career glossary.