Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A format for presenting movies on television that maintains the rectangular theater image on a television screen by reducing the overall image until the full width can be seen, resulting in blank space above and below the image.
  • transitive verb To produce or present (film) in a letterbox format.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective film Transferred to home video formats while preserving the original aspect ratio, having black bars above and below the picture area.
  • noun a mailbox
  • verb film To transfer a widescreen motion picture to home video formats while preserving the original aspect ratio, with the placing of black bars above and below the picture area.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • Not like this man, when I'm drunk and they forgot to bring me the commercial mail, but when I'm tired and the mailman has indeed graced me with a load of advertisements while my letterbox is clearly marked with a large sticker that says:

    Going postal nathreee 2007

  • To within a few millimetres, human brains share a reading hotspot - what Stanislas Dehaene calls the "letterbox" - on the bottom of the left hemisphere.

    LISNews - Comments 2009

  • His most recent leaflet through my letterbox was the most patronising I've ever received, incidentally.

    Polling numbers just don't add up Jeff 2009

  • His occasional glossy colour leaflet coming through my letterbox is the signal for me to get the Zippo out.

    Shame on Quentin Davies MP 2007

  • Taking a cue from Corrente, I'm going to make it an early night; The Magnificent Seven is on TCM, and I'm a sucker for a good western, especially if it's shown in letterbox.

    September 2004 2004

  • This lack of paper in my letterbox is a source of great sadness to me.

    Even in a little thing 2010

  • Just like the Philips 21: 9 LCD TV we've reviewed previously, the TW2900 can be adapted to watch Cinemascope-size movies (also called letterbox or anamorphic 2.35: 1) via a special anamorphic wide mode, though for that you will need to buy a third party anamorphic lens.

    Pocket-lint.com 2009

  • Just like the Philips 21: 9 LCD TV we've reviewed previously, the TW2900 can be adapted to watch Cinemascope-size movies (also called letterbox or anamorphic 2.35: 1) via a special anamorphic wide mode, though for that you will need to buy a third party anamorphic lens.

    Pocket-lint.com 2009

  • To within a few millimetres, human brains share a reading hotspot - what Stanislas Dehaene calls the "letterbox" - on the bottom of the left hemisphere. "

    Stephen's Lighthouse 2009

  • At the moment, official contact in adoption is most often made through the "letterbox" process.

    Adopted children face anguish as birth parents stalk them on Facebook Victoria Macdonald 2010

  • In that case, the window had a "letterbox" (margins at top and bottom only) or "pillbox" (margins at left and right only) appearance. window.devicePixelRatio was always spoofed to 1.0 even when device pixels != CSS pixels.

    Firefox to add Tor Browser anti-fingerprinting technique called letterboxing | ZDNet Catalin Cimpanu 2019

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