correspondence
Pluralcorrespondences
- 1Letters, emails, and other forms of written communication sent and received between people.
The historian sorted through decades of correspondence between the two statesmen.
Company policy requires that all business correspondence be archived for seven years.
Similarletters, mail, communications
Note
The everyday sense mostly behaves like mail, as a mass noun. Michael Harmon's 1985 personal advertisement in Gay Community News asks for "some correspondence," not for letters counted one by one. The word can also be counted, and the plural correspondences exists, but in ordinary use "a lot of correspondence" sounds more natural than a number of correspondences.
- 2An ongoing exchange of letters between people, carried on as a friendly or courteous communication.
Their correspondence grew warmer as the months passed.
He maintained a lively correspondence with several scientists across Europe.
Similarcommunication, contact
Note
Here the word names the back-and-forth itself, the relationship two writers keep going, rather than the paper it produces. The paper is the letters themselves. The older idea of an exchange of civilities still clings to it, so a correspondence is something people keep up, carry on, or let lapse, much like a friendship.
- 3Agreement or similarity between different things, people, and the like, in the way they match or fit together.
Critics pointed out the striking correspondence between the novel's plot and the author's own childhood.
The two languages show regular correspondences in their grammar and vocabulary.
Similarsimilarity, resemblance, parallel, correlation, agreement
Oppositedifference, discrepancy, dissimilarity
Note
Built on correspond, the same verb behind the word for letters: one noun covers things that answer each other and people who write back to each other. In this sense it counts freely, as in a single striking correspondence or regular correspondences between two systems, and it often pairs with between. The spiritual sense that pairs light with wisdom is one special case of this broader fit.
- 4A relation that links the members of one set with the members of another set.
The proof establishes a one-to-one correspondence between the two sets.
Each correspondence in the diagram maps an input to exactly one output.
Similarmapping
Note
Set theory uses the word for any pairing between two sets. Formally, a correspondence is a subset of their Cartesian product, so one element may be matched with several partners or with none. The familiar phrase one-to-one correspondence names the strict case, where every member of each set has exactly one partner.
- 5News reports and stories sent to a newspaper by a writer reporting from another place.
His wartime correspondence earned him a reputation as a fearless reporter.
The magazine ran her correspondence from the capital throughout the election.
Similarreporting, dispatches
Less common meanings
- 6Friendly social dealings and conversation between people who are on good terms with one another.
Note
This meaning has long since dropped out of the language. Like every sense of the word, it goes back through Middle English to Latin correspondentia, and it can be read as correspond plus -ence. It named the warmth of good company rather than any exchange of letters. Recognize it in older writing, but avoid it today: a modern reader will hear the letter-writing meaning instead.
- 7A similarity between physical and spiritual things (e.g. light to wisdom, or warmth to love)
Practice
Can you tell the meanings of correspondence apart? Answer 3 quick questions from this page, or write your own sentence and AI will check it.
Origin
It comes from Middle English correspondence, from Latin correspondentia; by surface analysis, it is correspond plus the suffix -ence.