pen pal

American  

noun

• pen pals
  plural

1. a person with whom one keeps up an exchange of letters, usually someone so far away that a personal meeting is unlikely.

   My niece in Texas has a pen pal in France.

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pen pal British  

noun

1. Also called: pen friend.  a person with whom one regularly exchanges letters, often a person in another country whom one has not met

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• pen pals
  plural

Etymology

Origin of pen pal

An Americanism dating back to 1935–40

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

pen pal

“He’s just an incredibly loving soul,” said actor Debra Winger, a pen pal and close friend of Robbins’.

From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 9, 2025

Sigrid shared similar experiences, offering that “your pen pal will change your perspective on life, and you will gain as much as they do from the correspondence.”

From Slate ● Sep. 12, 2023

Twenty years after their unlikely pen pal correspondence comes to a sudden end, Iris is working as a journalist in London and sets about trying to find her pen friend.

From BBC ● Feb. 25, 2023

A woman whose childhood pen pal suddenly stopped writing after fleeing the Rwanda genocide has written a novel to "exorcise the grief of not knowing what happened" to her.

From BBC ● Feb. 25, 2023

“My pen pal sent them,” I explained every time.

From "I Will Always Write Back" by Caitlin Alifirenka and Martin Ganda

Related Words

• letter writer