correspondence

American  

[kawr-uh-spon-duhns, kor-] / ˌkɔr əˈspɒn dəns, ˌkɒr- /

noun

1. communication by exchange of letters.

2. a letter or letters that pass between correspondents.

   It will take me all day to answer this business correspondence.

3. Also an instance of corresponding.

4. similarity or analogy.

5. agreement; conformity.

   Synonyms:

   consonance, concord, accord

6. news, commentary, letters, etc., received from a newspaper or magazine correspondent.

7. Mathematics. function.

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correspondence British  

/ ˌkɒrɪˈspɒndəns /

noun

1. the act or condition of agreeing or corresponding

2. similarity or analogy

3. agreement or conformity

4. 1. communication by the exchange of letters

   2. the letters so exchanged

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Other Word Forms

• noncorrespondence
  noun
• precorrespondence
  noun

Etymology

Origin of correspondence

1375–1425; late Middle English (< Middle French ) < Medieval Latin corrēspondentia. See correspondent, -ence

Explanation

Correspondence is a body of letters or communications. If you've ever had a pen pal or an email buddy, you’ve written plenty of correspondence. Besides referring to that stack of love letters you've bound up with ribbon, correspondence has a couple of other meanings, too. When you and your friend hold similar opinions about a particular subject, your thoughts are in correspondence, or "agreement." In mathematics, symmetrical objects are in correspondence — that is, they mirror each other exactly.

Example Sentences

At the time, Musk called Karpathy “arguably the #2 guy” in the world in computer vision, according to email correspondence made public as part of Musk’s recent lawsuit against OpenAI.

From MarketWatch • May 19, 2026

They shared an unexplained inside joke, referring multiple times in their correspondence to the “tiger.”

From Salon • May 19, 2026

George later discovered that CMS correspondence intended for him had been sent to the wrong address for several years, despite letters being returned undelivered and him repeatedly confirming his details by phone.

From BBC • May 15, 2026

Jesenská, a gentile, was a Czechoslovak citizen living in Vienna, and when she received Kafka’s permission to translate him into Czech the two began a passionate correspondence.

From The Wall Street Journal • May 15, 2026

Warren concluded with a scathing diagnosis of the Adams correspondence with her as a scattered series of verbal impulses and “the most captious, malignant, irrelevant compositions that have ever been seen.”

From "Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation" by Joseph J. Ellis

Related Words

• writing