Word.ws English Dictionary

penfriend

penfriend noun: a person, often in a foreign country, with whom one exchanges friendly correspondence but whom one never or rarely meets.

Noun

penfriend (plural penfriends)

  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.1988 May 7, Jeff Hershberger, “Personal advertisement”, in Gay Community News, page 13
    Synonyms:
    pen pal

Synonyms of penfriend

Forms of penfriend

pluralpenfriends

Origin of penfriend

From pen + friend.

Words formed from penfriend

Questions about penfriend

What does penfriend mean?
Penfriend means a person, often in a foreign country, with whom one exchanges friendly correspondence but whom one never or rarely meets.
What part of speech is penfriend?
Penfriend is a noun.
What is the plural of penfriend?
The plural of penfriend is penfriends.

Words near penfriend in the dictionary

  1. penfishes
  2. penfluridol
  3. penflutizide
  4. penfold
  5. penfolds
  6. penfriend
  7. penfriends
  8. penfriendship
  9. penfriendships
  10. penful
  11. penfuls

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: penfriend (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “penfriend.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/penfriend. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.