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ClarissaMach · Last edited by ClarissaMach on Fri Oct 26, 2007 8:03 am; edited 1 time in total

What is the difference between "parcel" and "package"?
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ClarissaMach · Posted: Fri Oct 26, 2007 8:01 am Post subject:

By now I'm reading "Lord of the rings" and there's this sentence: "Inside the hall there was piled a large assortment of packages and parcels and small articles of furniture". I wonder why the author decided to mention "packages and parcels", for I used to think these two words meant the same.
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myprofe · Posted: Fri Oct 26, 2007 8:47 am Post subject: parcel or package

As you say the two words are synonyms. I have given it some thought but I don't know why the two words are used together in that sentence.
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ClarissaMach · Posted: Fri Oct 26, 2007 9:32 am Post subject:

May be they're not perfect synonyms. I mean, "kill" and "murder" are synonyms, but whereas it's right to say "I killed an ant", it's senseless saying "I murdered an ant".

Would there be any ocasion in which using "parcels", for example, is more usual that using "packages"?
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Bob S. · Joined: 29 Apr 2004 Posts: 1767 Location: So. Cal

I usually think of a package as a wrapped box. A parcel is wrapped too but not in a box.
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asterix · Joined: 26 Jan 2003 Posts: 1654

I think of a parcel as something that's all wrapped up and ready for shipping by mail, other than a letter.

A package could be just something in a box or something you just brought home from the store with all that impregnable plastic stuff aound it.