plural correspondences
1
: the activity of writing letters or e-mails to someone
They communicated by telephone and correspondence.
E-mail correspondence has become extremely important for modern businesses.
The two men began a correspondence that would continue throughout their lives.
2
: the letters or e-mails that people write to each other
A book of the author's personal correspondence was published early last year.
A formal tone is always used in business correspondence.
I have a pile of correspondence [=letters from people] on my desk.
3
: a direct relationship to or with something or between two things
Note the correspondence of each number to a location on the map.
Sometimes there is little correspondence between the way a word is spelled and the way it is pronounced in English.
Sometimes there are few correspondences between spelling and pronunciation.
4
: the fact of being similar or equal to something
The degree of correspondence between the two texts is startling. [=it is startling to see how closely they resemble each other]
There is a close correspondence between the two texts.
There are many correspondences between them.
Cite this Entry
“Correspondence.” Merriam-Webster.com Simple Definition, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/simple/correspondence. Accessed 23 Jun. 2026.
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