mailed

1. 1
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of mail.

   The clerk mailed the refund check after processing the claim.

   Every notice has been mailed to residents along the affected route.

   Note

   A regular -ed form that does double duty. As the simple past it stands alone (she mailed it Monday); as the past participle it follows have or be (it has been mailed). The verb can take two objects, so both she mailed him the forms and she mailed the forms to him are correct. The same spelling also belongs to an unrelated word from chainmail, the source of the armored adjective. Source

   Checked 30 Oct 2026 · 2 facts

   • The armored adjective mailed derives from mail meaning chainmail. en.wiktionary.org
   • Armor mail and postal mail have unrelated origins. etymonline.com
2. 2
   adjective

   Armored in, protected by, or made of mail: flexible defensive armor formed from interlinked metal rings.

   Like a tunic knitted from thousands of tiny iron rings instead of yarn.

   The mailed knight dismounted before the castle gate.

   Rows of mailed soldiers advanced steadily across the open field.

   Similararmored

   Oppositeunarmored

   Note

   Middle English mayled is behind it: mail in its armor sense plus the adjective ending -ed. It means wearing mail, not sent through it. It sits naturally before a noun, as in mailed warriors or a mailed knight. Charles Knight's London (1843) uses it for the stone effigies of mailed warriors that once filled church niches, a good sign of its medieval associations.

3. 3
   adjectiverare

   Having an appearance that resembles the overlapping scales of armor.

   The fish was covered in a mailed pattern of overlapping scales.

   The sculptor gave the dragon a mailed hide of interlocking ridges.

   Similarscaly, scaled

   Note

   A rare figurative stretch, used when overlapping plates or feathers look like armor. Frederick Albion Ober's A Boy's Adventures in the West Indies (1888) gives a hummingbird "a coat of mailed feathers, glowing like a gem." The image fits, because Middle English mail could also mean a spot on a bird's feather. Since it is rare, it reads as a deliberate image rather than an everyday adjective.

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