It would mean basically a pal you are very familiar with, but simultaneously it is used even with people you have never seen before.
The teacher asks how the information presented in this passage corresponds to the stories told in their pen pals' letters.
There was a nice blazing fire, and they all sat in different kinds of chairs hearing their old pal play the fiddle.
What would we do if all we had to do was to get up in the morning and join our pals on the street corner?
He heard a widow broadcast for a pen pal.
Why are there thousands and thousands of their pals on the dole who cannot get work and who want to work?
Tell that to your pal at your side—all that twaddle.
However, realising that they could not con their old pals, they withdrew that part of the industry from privatisation.
