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

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

I chuckled because I wasn’t sure what was more comical: the persistence of this long-lost pen pal or the thought of me ever leaving L.A.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 21, 2023

He met Rhianan's mother via a pen pal system for prisoners.

From BBC ● Jan. 3, 2023

Lily had been studying English in school and had a British pen pal, whose family agreed to sponsor Lily’s removal to England as part of the operation known as Kindertransport.

From New York Times ● Sep. 14, 2022

I have many pen pals: tourists, Holy Land pilgrims, and students who join pen pal programs to see the world through other people’s words.

From "Tasting the Sky" by Ibtisam Barakat

Related Words

• letter writer