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Glite Dictionary
pen pal

pen pal

18 2.9
A person in another country you write letters to and become friends with
  • noun
  • /pɛn pæl/
translation icon : amigo por correspondencia
  • I was matched with a pen pal through a teen magazine when we were both 15.

HuffPost has a story about the ongoing resurgence of real snail mail pen pals.

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Examples

  • Some children have developed friendships with pen pals in different schools and with children of different ethnic backgrounds.

    Academic text (2004)

  • Maybe it was from Ted, a young man with whom I'd been pen pals for years.

    Fiction book (2000)

  • Maybe, we could be pen pals.

    Cardboard Boxer (2016)

  • Maybe we'll be pen pals.

    Dear Dictator (2018)

  • If you could be pen pals with anyone, living or dead, who would you write to?

    Blog text (3)

  • While we do email our pen pals, we also write conventional letters.

    Academic text (2007)

  • We have pen pals in Kansas whom we can email regularly.

    Academic text (2007)

  • I have a pen pal in Guam.

    Pixels (2015)

  • He writes letters to his Romanian pen pal.

    Little Man Tate (1991)

  • I have a pen pal in Japan who sends me letters every month.

Synonyms

correspondent
vspen pal
31 3.5

A person who regularly writes letters to someone

focuses on friendship through letter exchange rather than routine or formal contact
pen-friend
vspen pal
  • UK
3.2

A person you write to and know only by letters, often never meeting

emphasizes friendship by letters often with someone in another country or place

Surface Forms

pen pal singular
pen pals plural

Morphology

pen + pal

The meaning is directly and transparently built from 'pen' (writing instrument) + 'pal' (friend) — i.e., a friend established through writing or letters. This noun-noun composition follows a common, predictable pattern and similar concepts exist across many languages, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents will readily infer the intended meaning.

Etymology

The noun pen pal comes from a simple picture: someone you become friends with by writing with a pen. A pal means friend, so pen pal came to mean 'a friend you know by exchanging letters', often in another country.