Word.ws English Dictionary

postillion

postillion is the alternative spelling of postilion.

Meaning of postilion

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, […]...
  2. (obsolete) A post-boy, a messenger boy, a swift letter carrier.

Forms of postillion

pluralpostillions

Questions about postillion

What is postillion the alternative spelling of?
Postillion is the alternative spelling of postilion.

Words near postillion in the dictionary

  1. postillators
  2. postilled
  3. postiller
  4. postillers
  5. postilling
  6. postillion
  7. postillions
  8. postillumination
  9. postils
  10. postimmersion
  11. postimmigration

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: postillion (page history and authors); postilion (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.

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