Letterhack

noun, verb, slang

noun, verb, slang ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A fan who is a prolific writer of letters to periodicals. dated, slang

    "Nowadays a letter-hack says things simply, which is, after all, the best way. Take any good story. You don't find long, stilted sentences with long-winded descriptions (which was one reason I put ‘The Dimension of Chance’ last). So listen and learn, letter-hacks."

Verb
  1. 1
    To write letters to periodicals very frequently. dated, slang

    "It was in those letter columns that I was first exposed to the concept of fandom. Letterhacking was in high bloom in 1951; the letter columns were filled with chatty letters from all sorts of people, the names of whom I soon came to recognize."

Example

More examples

"Nowadays a letter-hack says things simply, which is, after all, the best way. Take any good story. You don't find long, stilted sentences with long-winded descriptions (which was one reason I put ‘The Dimension of Chance’ last). So listen and learn, letter-hacks."

Etymology

From letter + hack.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.