Postage comes from post, from Italian posta ('a relay station'), from Latin positus ('placed'). The postal system was a network of placed stations where riders exchanged horses. Postage was the fee.
The charge for sending a letter or parcel by post; the stamps affixed to an item to indicate payment of this charge.
From post + -age. Post in the postal sense comes from French poste, from Italian posta meaning 'a station, a relay point', from Vulgar Latin *posta, a feminine form of Latin positus, the past participle of pōnere meaning 'to place, to put'. The postal system was built on a network of stations placed along roads where riders would exchange tired horses for fresh ones. Each station was a post — a placed point. Postage was the fee for using this relay network. The same root pōnere produced position
The entire postal system is named after horses standing still. Italian posta meant a relay station — a point placed along a road where riders swapped exhausted horses for fresh ones. The letter was secondary; the infrastructure was about speed. Postage was the fee for this horse-relay network