despatch

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /dɪˈspætʃ/
• (General Australian) IPA^(key): /dəˈspætʃ/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /dɪˈspæt͡ʃ/
• Rhymes: -ætʃ

despatch (countable and uncountable, plural despatches)

1. Alternative form of dispatch
   • 1843, William Hickling Prescott, The Conquest of Mexico, volume 1, published 1957, page 31:

     The courier, bearing his despatches in the form of a hieroglyphical painting, ran with them to the first station, […] .

   • 1931, Francis Beeding, “1/1”, in Death Walks in Eastrepps‎^[1]:

     Eldridge closed the despatch-case with a snap and, rising briskly, walked down the corridor to his solitary table in the dining-car.

   • 1962 December, “New station at Tamworth”, in Modern Railways, page 385:

     There are special rooms where mail can be stored and stacked ready for despatch and accommodation with cooking facilities for T.P.O. crews who change from one mail train to another at Tamworth.

despatch (third-person singular simple present despatches, present participle despatching, simple past and past participle despatched)

1. Alternative form of dispatch
   • 1833, Massachusetts Medical Society, New England Surgical Society, Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, Volumes 8-9, page 31,

     She fainted, was got into bed, and a messenger was despatched for me.

   • 1915, G[eorge] A. Birmingham [pseudonym; James Owen Hannay], chapter I, in Gossamer, New York, N.Y.: George H. Doran Company, →OCLC:

     There is an hour or two, after the passengers have embarked, which is disquieting and fussy. […] Passengers wander restlessly about or hurry, with futile energy, from place to place. Pushing men hustle each other at the windows of the purser's office, under pretence of expecting letters or despatching telegrams.

   • 1960 December, “More L.T. progress with programme machines”, in Trains Illustrated, page 758:

     The machines can automatically take account of late running of trains and, if it exceeds a pre-determined amount, can despatch a train out of turn.

   • 1961 August, “New traffic flows in South Wales”, in Trains Illustrated, page 492:

     The amount of coal despatched in the Western Region is about 24,000,000 tons a year, nearly all from South Wales, though the Region includes the Forest of Dean, N. Somerset, and part of the N. Wales coalfields.

   • 2013 June 14, Jonathan Freedland, “Obama's once hip brand is now tainted”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 1, page 18:

     Now we are liberal with our innermost secrets, spraying them into the public ether with a generosity our forebears could not have imagined. Where we once sent love letters in a sealed envelope, or stuck photographs of our children in a family album, now such private material is despatched to servers and clouds operated by people we don't know and will never meet.

• Mentioned in Despatches on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

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