Correspondent

How to spell correspondent

13 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce correspondent

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does correspondent mean?

1. nounA journalist who reports news, often from a particular place or on a particular subject, for a news organisation.
2. nounA person who communicates with another by writing letters or messages.

Correspondent in a sentence

• The network sent its senior correspondent to cover the election.

• My grandmother was a faithful correspondent who answered every letter within a week.

• As a foreign correspondent, she filed reports from three different capitals.

• He remained a regular correspondent with his old research partner for decades.

Where does correspondent come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb correspondere, built from com- meaning 'together' and respondere meaning 'to answer' or 'to promise in return'. The literal idea was of two parties answering one another, matching back and forth, which is exactly the sense preserved when we say two things 'correspond'. Medieval Latin used correspondens for the present participle, and English picked the word up through French during the late 1500s. At first a correspondent was simply someone who exchanged letters with another, but by the nineteenth century, when newspapers began stationing writers abroad to send dispatches home, the word took on its now familiar journalistic meaning. The doubled r comes straight from the com- prefix assimilating before the r of respondere, and the -ent ending (not -ant) reflects the Latin present participle; both points are the usual spelling traps.

How the word is built

• cor- (from com-: together)
• respond (to answer)
• -ent (agent noun suffix: one who)