messenger

American  

[mes-uhn-jer] / ˈmɛs ən dʒər /

noun

• messengers
  plural

1. a person who carries a message or goes on an errand for another, especially as a matter of duty or business.

   Synonyms:

   courier, bearer

2. a person employed to convey official dispatches or to go on other official or special errands.

   a bank messenger.

3. Nautical.

   1. a rope or chain made into an endless belt to pull on an anchor cable or to drive machinery from some power source, as a capstan or winch.

   2. a light line by which a heavier line, as a hawser, can be pulled across a gap between a ship and a pier, a buoy, another ship, etc.

4. Oceanography. a brass weight sent down a line to actuate a Nansen bottle or other oceanographic instrument.

5. Archaic. a herald, forerunner, or harbinger.

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verb (used with object)

1. to send by messenger.

messenger British  

/ ˈmɛsɪndʒə /

noun

1. a person who takes messages from one person or group to another or others

2. a person who runs errands or is employed to run errands

3. a carrier of official dispatches; courier

4. nautical

   1. a light line used to haul in a heavy rope

   2. an endless belt of chain, rope, or cable, used on a powered winch to take off power

5. archaic a herald

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• messengers
  plural

Etymology

Origin of messenger

1175–1225; Middle English messager, messangere < Anglo-French; Old French messagier. See message, -er ²

Explanation

Use the noun messenger to refer to someone who brings you a message. Your mail carrier delivering a postcard and your gossipy friend calling to give you the latest news can each be described as a messenger. Delivering messages for others is certainly a time-honored profession, since even the gods of Antiquity needed someone to do it — the Greeks had Hermes and the Romans had Mercury as their messenger gods. A messenger carries a message, and that's where the word itself comes from: the Latin root of message is missus, which means "a sending away, sending, dispatching" and is the past participle of mittere, "send."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

messenger messengers

From Bass’ side, Pratt voters will be targeted by her most credible messenger to moderate and more conservative voters: the Police Protective League, the union representing rank-and-file Los Angeles Police Department officers.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 13, 2026

Because working-class voters, as they tell us themselves, are not simply waiting to be activated by the right program, messenger or phrase.

From Salon ● Aug. 9, 2026

The vaccine, called mFlusiva, uses the same messenger RNA technology as Moderna’s Covid-19 shots.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 6, 2026

His Telegram messenger is one of the country's main communications platforms.

From Barron's ● Jul. 30, 2026

They thought he had forgotten to come, so they sent a messenger to our home to remind him.

From "Black Star, Bright Dawn" by Scott O'Dell

The White House has also lost one of its most powerful messengers, after formidable Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt stepped down, saying she wanted to devote more time to her children.

From Barron's ● Aug. 28, 2026

This called for the creation of fake messengers, and Delmer invented some absolute stunners.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 12, 2026

His lab identified it years ago as one of the thousands of peptides that act as chemical messengers in the human body, one he believed might someday have therapeutic uses for humans.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 6, 2026

Receptors are molecular structures that receive signals from hormones, drugs, and other chemical messengers.

From Science Daily ● Jul. 24, 2026

“The more you observe, New Voice, the more you understand. Once you can interpret the voice of the world, you become its revealer. Birds are strong messengers of the world.”

From "The Ugly One" by Leanne Statland Ellis

Related Words

• courier
• emissary
• go-between
• mediator
• prophet