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

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Etymology

Origin of messenger

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

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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

China’s People’s Liberation Army has dabbled with messenger pigeons to carry dispatches from the front lines in the event of a catastrophic communications outage.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 8, 2026

Charting an American immigrant's rise from messenger boy to corporate tycoon, it was inspired, in part, by his own financial problems and did much to solve them.

From BBC ● Oct. 5, 2026

Officials from the Montrose Search and Rescue reminded hikers to carry a satellite emergency communication device or other GPS messenger capable of sending their exact location.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 5, 2026

He was essentially forced out of the company as it came under pressure from the authorities in the mid 2010s and founded Telegram, a social media platform and private messenger.

From Barron's ● Jul. 29, 2026

She bade him keep on the alert for she would send him a messenger, a bee, to tell him her wishes.

From "Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes" by Edith Hamilton

The leaders of the A.I. industries are extremely unpopular and make bad messengers for requesting this sort of access.

From Slate ● Oct. 14, 2026

Peptides are short chains of amino acids that can act as signaling messengers that might, for instance, tell the body to produce more growth hormone or repair tissue.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 6, 2026

Neutrinos can be thought of as astronomical messengers that point to those fundamental events.

From BBC ● Oct. 6, 2026

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

The messengers of the Aesir rode like the wind, and they asked each thing they encountered if it wept for Balder, so that Balder could be free of Hel ’s world.

From "Norse Mythology" by Neil Gaiman

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Related Words

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

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