correspondence

American  

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

noun

• correspondences
  plural

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

Derived Forms

• noncorrespondence
  noun
• precorrespondence
  noun

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• correspondences
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of correspondence

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

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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

See Examples For:

correspondence correspondences

They also studied historical records, technical reports, correspondence, and other archival documents to reconstruct the reactor's capabilities and determine what would have been required for it to work.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 16, 2026

Barnett, 42, has taken to editing correspondence he wrote himself to make it sound like less AI, which he notes would be “the exact same workflow if I was actually just using an LLM.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 30, 2026

I realized that replying to complicated requests or problems in anger or haste was never smart, so I kept his rule to slow my response time down eight hours for future correspondence.

From Slate ● Sep. 27, 2026

That extends well beyond the information available to patients through the NHS app and may include safeguarding concerns, risk assessments, correspondence between healthcare professionals and detailed consultation notes.

From BBC ● Sep. 24, 2026

They kept the Colonies in touch with each other through secret correspondence and later would help make united action possible.

From "George Washington, Spymaster" by Thomas B. Allen

The agency declined to share correspondences between staffers due to the continuing investigation, the report said.

From Barron's ● Feb. 23, 2026

In another, he included what he described as Kennedy’s explicit correspondences with Nuzzi, and said Nuzzi acted as a political operative for the then-candidate.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 5, 2025

To learn more about the state’s correspondences with the CDC, KFF Health News filed a public records request to the Texas health department.

From Salon ● Aug. 26, 2025

Since then, the tribe has reached out “via email correspondences to the city, to the various departments, the planning commission, and the city council for that matter,” said Jaime.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 8, 2024

I set my cigar box full of Jemma’s old correspondences on the bench beside me, and I opened a few newspapers scavenged from the depot.

From "The Detective's Assistant" by Kate Hannigan

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