A Nixie is a name given by the

United States Postal Service The United States Postal Service (USPS), also known as the Post Office, U.S. Mail, or Postal Service, is an independent agency of the executive branch of the United States federal government responsible for providing postal service in the U ...

to a piece of

mail The mail or post is a system for physically transporting postcards, letters, and parcels. A postal service can be private or public, though many governments place restrictions on private systems. Since the mid-19th century, national postal sys ...

which is undeliverable as addressed. It is derived from "nix", English slang for the German ''nichts'' ("nothing"), and "-ie", an item or a thing. ("Nix" used in English c. 1780–1790, "Nixie" c. 1880–1885.) In the 20th century, the term "Nixie clerk" referred to a postal employee who determined what to do with undeliverable items, which were not just poorly addressed mail, but ranged from torn-open envelopes of photographs, to lost and found wallets dropped into a mailbox. More recently, the USPS

National Change Of Address National Change of Address (NCOALink) "is a secure dataset of approximately 160 million permanent change-of-address (COA) records consisting of the names and addresses of individuals, families and businesses who have filed a change-of-address with ...

(NCOA) Service provided data to mailers with scoring on how close a match the name and address are to something actually forwardable or deliverable, which were referred to as "Nixie Codes". The USPS distinguishes a Nixie from other address errors in that the mail piece is always returned to the sender, whereas a

change of address Post offices and other mail service providers typically offer a mail forwarding service, commonly known as hybrid mail or virtual post office box services, to redirect mail addressed to one location to another address – usually for a given per ...

could either be forwarded or returned to the sender with a correction or notification. In the early 21st century the word began to be printed in the upper left corner of yellow labels generated by the USPS's Postal Automated Redirection System (PARS). With the advent of

e-mail Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronic (digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, at a time when "mail" meant ...

messages, the term receives wider use, and address changes are registered in what may be called the "Nixie list".

References

External links

PARS description

United States Postal Service {{Postal-stub