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What does the term "street address" mean, as opposed to just "address"?

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4 Answers

up vote 11 down vote accepted

An (unqualified) address can be a post-office box or APO address or the like — any place that can receive mail. People often use "street address" when they need to be able to find a person there, e.g. for packages that require signatures.

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1  
A quick google on "street address" confirms that it's frequently accompanied by not/and/or PO Box. Possibly there's also a suggestion that they're more 'trustable', like @yourISP email addresses as opposed to, say, @hotmail, which isn't accepted everywhere. – FumbleFingers May 26 '11 at 21:41
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In addition, other carriers besides the postal service deliver packages. In the US, UPS and FedEx can't deliver to a PO Box, but can deliver to a street address. – thursdaysgeek May 27 '11 at 0:03
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My brother had a street address that was different than his mailing address; due to a quirk in the building plan, the mailboxes were on one street, the building entrance on another. He described his street address as "the place where you visit" and his mailing address as "the place where the bills visit." – KitFox♦ May 27 '11 at 0:26
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@Kit: if only the bills knew how to judge when a visit has gone on too long. :-) – Monica Cellio May 27 '11 at 1:30
up vote 4 down vote

'Address' on its own can refer to 'email address', 'website address' and 'street address'.

'Street' is, therefore, a specifier to 'address', indicating that 'mailing' or 'postal' address is required.

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up vote 3 down vote

Sometimes, "street address" refers to your physical location at a finer level than city. E.g., "1313 Mockingbird Lane", without the city name attached.

But yes, usually it's just a retronym to distinguish it from mailing address (originally) and now e-mail address, web address, IP address, and so forth.

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up vote 0 down vote

Street address is exactly what it says, while an address can be any address: e-mail address, for example, which are distinguishable by the context.

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