messenger
Americannoun
-
a person who carries a message or goes on an errand for another, especially as a matter of duty or business.
-
a person employed to convey official dispatches or to go on other official or special errands.
a bank messenger.
-
Nautical.
-
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.
-
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.
-
-
Oceanography. a brass weight sent down a line to actuate a Nansen bottle or other oceanographic instrument.
-
Archaic. a herald, forerunner, or harbinger.
verb (used with object)
noun
-
a person who takes messages from one person or group to another or others
-
a person who runs errands or is employed to run errands
-
a carrier of official dispatches; courier
-
nautical
-
a light line used to haul in a heavy rope
-
an endless belt of chain, rope, or cable, used on a powered winch to take off power
-
-
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
Looking to grow your vocabulary? Check out this interactive, curated word list from our team of English language specialists at Vocabulary.com – one of over 17,000 lists we've built to help learners worldwide!
Messenger
Interested in learning more words like this one? Our team at Vocabulary.com has got you covered! You can review flashcards, quiz yourself, practice spelling, and more – and it's all completely free to use!
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.
Meta itself also reported high disruptions on some of its advertising and application developments for enterprise customers, including Facebook Ads Manager, WhatsApp Business, and Messenger API.
From Barron's • Jun. 12, 2026
Messenger RNA carries the instructions needed for cells to make proteins.
From Science Daily • May 25, 2026
The company has a huge base of users—more than 3.5 billion people used Meta’s Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger daily in the first quarter.
From The Wall Street Journal • May 5, 2026
Combined with an updated large language model, Meta could roll out an agentic shopping tool across its various social-media sites, allowing users to purchase products directly on platforms such as Messenger, according to Nowak.
From MarketWatch • Mar. 30, 2026
I tossed my Kellner & Newton Messenger Bag on the conveyer belt, double-checked all my pockets, and waited for Laleh to get the all-clear so I could take my turn in the scanner.
From "Darius the Great Is Not Okay" by Adib Khorram
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.
