messenger

[ mes-uhn-jer ]

noun

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.

verb (used with object)

1. to send by messenger.

messenger

/ 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

Word History and Origins

Origin of messenger¹

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

Word History and Origins

Origin of messenger¹

C13: from Old French messagier, from message

Example Sentences

The first attempt to use synthetic messenger RNA to make an animal produce a protein was in 1990.

From MIT Technology Review

The company uses software developed by another bicycle messenger company that can be tied directly to many restaurants’ online ordering platforms.

From Eater

We saw this as an extension of our role as public health messengers.

From MIT Technology Review

SSRIs increase levels of the chemical messenger serotonin in the brain.

From Science News

Like the Pfizer-BioNTech shot, it uses messenger RNA technology that teaches the body’s cells to fight off infection.

From Fortune

Even an imperfect messenger is capable of delivering news everyone needs to hear.

From The Daily Beast

As important as the messenger is here, the message—jobs—is even more so.

From The Daily Beast

I hate to use “passion project,” but Kill the Messenger does seem like just that for you.

From The Daily Beast

In between the blockbusters, the 43-year-old managed to slip in Kill the Messenger.

From The Daily Beast

There had already been a documentary on the case that aimed to do just that, as if killing the messenger would mute the message.

From The Daily Beast

The voice is the most potent influence of expression, the winged messenger between soul and soul.

From Project Gutenberg

It occurs commonly enough in the Royal Wardrobe Accounts, and means simply "a messenger."

From Project Gutenberg

When the three were at last alone, she paused before opening the letter and turned again to the messenger.

From Project Gutenberg

He did not have to wait very long until a man in the garb of a telegraph messenger came up the street.

From Project Gutenberg

The messenger looked both ways and finally turned up that sidewalk between the two tenements.

From Project Gutenberg

Related Words

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