Write back means to reply in writing: to a letter, an email, a message. It's a conversational way to say “send a reply”: He never wrote back.
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write back (to + person); write back + soon/the same day; write + person + back (US)
- I emailed the hotel on Monday, and they wrote back the same day.
- Thanks for your letter — I'll write back properly when I get home.
- She didn't write back to me for two weeks, so in the end I called her.
What changed
First versionI emailed the landlord twice, but he didn't answer back.
RevisionI emailed the landlord twice, but he didn't write back.
Answer back means to reply rudely: people say it about a child or an employee who argues back disrespectfully. The mistake is understandable: answer means “reply”, and back seems to mean “in return”. But he didn't answer back says the landlord wasn't rude, not that he stayed silent. You need write back.
Write back is conversational. In business emails, reply is more common: Thank you for replying to my email so quickly. If someone replies by phone, people say call back: I'll call you back in five minutes.
Your turn
I texted Anna an hour ago to ask about the tickets, but she hasn't ___ yet.
Show the answer
written back — Anna is supposed to reply to the message, that is, write a reply: written back. Hasn't answered back would mean “hasn't been rude yet”, and the meaning falls apart.
Describe a letter or message you were waiting for a reply to. Say who you wrote to and how long it took them to reply.
I wrote to my old school teacher in May, and she wrote back after three weeks.
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