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

In the song “I Don’t Know His Name,” Amalia concludes that her anonymous pen pal — even though he is, in fact, a co-worker she hates — must be an extremely kind and cultured man:

From New York Times ● Jun. 23, 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

And the only thing which truly sustained a pen pal relationship with my cousin in Australia was getting inside info on Ramsay Street.

From BBC ● Jul. 28, 2022

I decide to leave out the fact that I have a mysterious pen pal who is helping me write it.

From "How to Disappear Completely" by Ali Standish

Related Words

• letter writer