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

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

But Ms. Finley is shooting the messenger when she takes aim at TikTok.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 23, 2026

Dopamine is a chemical messenger that helps control movement, coordination, and balance.

From Science Daily ● Jun. 28, 2026

“You the two swindlers who just left the encampment?” says the messenger, looking down from his mount.

From "The Many Assassinations of Samir, the Seller of Dreams" by Daniel Nayeri

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

They then identified and synthesized many of the chemical messengers found in the ant brain.

From Science Daily ● Aug. 1, 2026

Company dancer Lloyd Knight, costumed as the Preacher in “Spring” and captured in a determined stance on a boulder, faces the book’s last page, which quotes Graham: “Dancers are the messengers of the gods.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 9, 2026

The column contends that the solution requires building civic infrastructure through trusted messengers who explain project significance, community organizations that provide plain-language guidance, and alternative participation methods beyond weekday government meetings.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 28, 2026

Three Indian messengers bring it to the fort gates, and I rejoice to see Captain Smith’s handwriting.

From "Blood on the River" by Elisa Carbone

Related Words

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