Word Pronunciation & Dictionary

poison-pen letter

Word Rarity Rare

Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.87 in modern English

Syllables: poi-son-pen let-ter
IPA

19

Scrabble Score

15

Letters

4

Syllables

9

Unique Chars

Meaning

noun

A missive which is malicious, insulting, and/or defamatory toward a person, organization, or point of view, especially one which is unsigned.

Example Sentences

"Miss Theresa Samuels . . . is accused by the Post Office authorities of sending scurrilous letters to young women whose engagements to marry had been publicly announced. . . . Those who received the poison pen letters were not willing to court the notoriety that would follow the prosecution of the case."
"A retired academic was the author of a poison-pen letter campaign that brought 12 years of fear to a North Yorkshire village, a court was told yesterday. Dr James Forster . . . was alleged to have branded one villager a prostitute and sent the 13-year-old daughter of the parish clerk a copy of a pornographic magazine."

Inflected Forms

poison-pen letters (plural) poison pen letter (alternative)

Questions

What does poison-pen letter mean?: A missive which is malicious, insulting, and/or defamatory toward a person, organization, or point of view, especially one which is unsigned.

How to pronounce poison-pen letter

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