POST - technical definition

(1) (Power On Self Test) A series of built-in diagnostics performed by the BIOS in a PC when the computer is first started. See POST card.

(2) (post) To send a message to a newsgroup or blog or to place a new or revised HTML page on a Web site. This term goes back to the earliest days of manual record keeping, where "to post to an account" meant to make an entry in a paper ledger.

(3) (post) Short for post production.

(4) (POST) An HTTP command used to send text to a Web server for processing. The POST method is widely implemented in HTML files for sending typed-in forms to the server. Both POST and GET are HTTP methods that make requests of the server, but pass parameters to it in a different manner. In some cases, both methods may produce the same results; however, there are many applications where only one of the methods is the appropriate one. See GET.