Snail mail or smail (from snail + mail)Royal Institute of Thailand. (n.d.). Thai Word Coinage by the Royal Institute of Thailand. [Online]. Available: . (Accessed: 12 March 2009). is a dysphemistic retronym — named after the snail with its slow speed — used to refer to letters and carried by conventional postal delivery services. The phrase refers to the lag-time between dispatch of a letter and its receipt, versus the virtually instantaneous dispatch and delivery of its electronic e… (More on Snail-mail)