noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   A person, often in a foreign country, with whom one exchanges friendly correspondence but whom one never or rarely meets.

   "I would like a penfriend, not for financial support or headgames, but just for a caring conversation."

Synonyms

All synonyms

pen palpen pal

Example

More examples

"She wrote letters to her penfriend every week."

Etymology

From pen + friend.

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