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As communications habits shift in favor of digital media such as email, text messaging, chats or instagram, it's increasingly common to need to describe the parties involved in a message exchange.

Generally, an exchange involves a sender and one or more recipients.

There is a decent set of nouns one can use to describe the sending party: author, sender, poster.

I'm looking for a simple word that can be used to describe the receiving party. Alternatives include recipient, addressee, and receiver, but I would much prefer an alternative that has fewer than 3 syllables and is not as long.

I haven't found anything shorter than 'receiver'. Does anyone have suggestions?

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    Believe it or not, Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary has an entry for sendee, meaning "the person to whom something is sent." I very much hope, however, that after looking at that word for a moment you'll realize that recipient, addressee, and receiver aren't such bad options after all.
    – Sven Yargs
    Feb 5, 2015 at 3:58
  • In most cases, the recipient is better called the spamee.
    – ottodidakt
    Feb 5, 2015 at 5:26
  • The "To," the "cc" and the "bcc" in mails? Text messaging & chat do not have the distinction of sender and receiver per se, though individual lines of message may "go" from "sender" to "receiver."
    – Kris
    Feb 5, 2015 at 7:01
  • Sven, well said! Sendee is.... awful!
    – tohster
    Feb 5, 2015 at 9:33

2 Answers 2

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Here are a few options I was able to come up with, in order of my preference. None of these are actual synonyms, but can carry the same meaning when used within specific contexts.

  1. The addressed
  2. The reader(s)
  3. (My) contact(s)
  4. The audience (3 syllables, but short)
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    Very well done!!
    – tohster
    Feb 5, 2015 at 9:34
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You could name the receiving person or party B, and the sender A, and use the name B when referring to the recipient.

Other than that I can't think of any shorter word for recipient that's commonly used.

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  • Synonymity can be very broad, but 'recipient' and 'party B'?
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Feb 5, 2015 at 11:48

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