Word.ws English Dictionary

postilion

/pɒˈstɪlɪən/US/pəˈstɪljən/

postilion noun: a rider mounted on the near (left) leading horse who guides the team pulling a carriage.

postilion: a rider mounted on the near (left) leading horse who guides the team pulling a carriage
Image: "Rowlandson", Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

postilion (plural postilions)

  1. A rider mounted on the near (left) leading horse who guides the team pulling a carriage.
    • C’est un garcon de bonne fortune, said the landlord, pointing through the window to half a dozen wenches who had got round about La Fleur, and were most kindly taking their leave of him, as the postilion was leading out the horses.1768, Mr. Yorick [pseudonym; Laurence Sterne], “Montreuil”, in A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy, volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: […] T. Becket and P. A. De Hondt, […]...
    • The postilion seized one of his fat horses by the tail, and swung himself up to his seat again.1839, [Henry Wadsworth Longfellow], “Mill-wheels and Other Wheels”, in Hyperion, a Romance. […], volume I, New York, N.Y.: Samuel Colman […], →OCLC, 2nd book, page 164
  2. (obsolete) A post-boy, a messenger boy, a swift letter carrier.

postilion meaning in Tamil

postilion in Tamil

மாவூர் வலவன்

Examples of postilion in a sentence

  • And now the carriage had fairly left the village; yet the postilions slackened their speed, and drew up gradually before a line of almshouses, […]1842, [Katherine] Thomson, chapter X, in Widows and Widowers. A Romance of Real Life., volume II, London: Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, page...
  • The postilions' favours draggled on their dripping jackets.1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 22, in Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848...
  • To play the postilion is not an easy thing.1911, Hilaire Belloc, chapter 6, in The Girondin:

Forms of postilion

pluralpostilions
alternative formpostillion

Origin of postilion

From Middle French postillon, and its likely source, Italian postiglione (“guide for driver of post-coach”), from posta (“post”).

Words formed from postilion

Phrases with postilion

Questions about postilion

What does postilion mean?
Postilion means a rider mounted on the near (left) leading horse who guides the team pulling a carriage.
What is postilion in Tamil?
Postilion in Tamil is மாவூர் வலவன். See Postilion meaning in Tamil.
How do you use postilion in a sentence?
And now the carriage had fairly left the village; yet the postilions slackened their speed, and drew up gradually before a line of almshouses, […]
What part of speech is postilion?
Postilion is a noun.
How do you pronounce postilion?
Postilion is pronounced /pɒˈstɪlɪən/ (UK).
What is the plural of postilion?
The plural of postilion is postilions.

Words near postilion in the dictionary

  1. postil
  2. postiled
  3. postiler
  4. postilers
  5. postiling
  6. postilion
  7. postilion sentence
  8. postilion sentences
  9. postilioned
  10. postilions
  11. postilla

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: postilion (page history and authors); postilion (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-postilion.wav.

Cite this entry: “postilion.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/postilion. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.