messenger
Americannoun
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messengers
plural
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a person who carries a message or goes on an errand for another, especially as a matter of duty or business.
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a person employed to convey official dispatches or to go on other official or special errands.
a bank messenger.
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Nautical.
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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.
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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.
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Oceanography. a brass weight sent down a line to actuate a Nansen bottle or other oceanographic instrument.
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Archaic. a herald, forerunner, or harbinger.
verb (used with object)
noun
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a person who takes messages from one person or group to another or others
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a person who runs errands or is employed to run errands
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a carrier of official dispatches; courier
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nautical
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a light line used to haul in a heavy rope
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an endless belt of chain, rope, or cable, used on a powered winch to take off power
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archaic a herald
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
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."
Vocabulary lists containing messenger
This Week In Words: November 21–27, 2020
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Messenger
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The vaccine, called mFlusiva, uses the same messenger RNA technology as Moderna’s Covid-19 shots.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 6, 2026
“I’m not a messenger for anybody in the world. I’m a messenger for my community.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 3, 2026
Serotonin is a chemical messenger with jobs throughout the body.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 12, 2026
India blocked access to Telegram messenger on Tuesday ahead of a retest of a nationwide medical college entrance examination, after a scandal last month over a question paper leak.
From Barron's ● Jun. 16, 2026
Given that he also knew many officials in Washington, he was considered an ideal messenger.
From "Killers of the Flower Moon" by David Grann
Humans domesticated the birds and used them as messengers and as food for thousands of years.
From BBC ● Jul. 24, 2026
"These microproteins may act as molecular messengers that translate what we eat into how our cells function and age," Vicinanza said.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 18, 2026
Beyond digestion, bile acids also serve as chemical messengers that interact with receptors throughout the body.
From Science Daily ● Jun. 9, 2026
Diplomatic immunity is a concept that goes back to ancient times, when warring tribes allowed enemy messengers safe passage as a way to communicate with each other.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 10, 2026
Arthur asked questions, sent messengers, remembered his captain in his prayers.
From "The Once and Future King" by T. H. White
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
