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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

messenger.

One who brings messages.

9 characters3 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈmɛs.ən.d͡ʒɚ/General-American/ˈmɛs.ən.d͡ʒə/Received-Pronunciation
  1. One who brings messages.

  2. The secretary bird.

  3. The supporting member of an aerial cable (electric power or telephone or data).

  4. A person appointed to perform certain ministerial duties under bankrupt and insolvent laws, such as to take charge of the estate of the bankrupt or insolvent.

  5. An instant messenger program.

  6. A forerunner or harbinger.

    figuratively
    a messenger of doom
  7. A light scudding cloud preceding a storm.

  8. A piece of paper, etc., blown up a string to a kite.

  9. A light line with which a heavier line may be hauled e.g. from the deck of a ship to the pier.

  10. A weight dropped down a line to close a Nansen bottle.

  11. A messenger-at-arms.

    Scotland
  12. A pin which travels across the pin deck to knock over another pin, usually for a strike.

Where this word comes from

From Middle English messengere, messingere, messangere, from Old French messanger, a variant of Old French messagier (French messager), equivalent to message + -er. Doublet of messager. Displaced native Old English boda (“messenger, envoy”) and ǣrendraca (“messenger, ambassador”). For the replacement of -ager with -enger, -inger, -anger, compare passenger, harbinger, scavenger, porringer. This development may have been merely the addition of n, or it may have resulted due to contamination from other suffixes such as Middle English -ing and the rare Old French -ange, -enc, -inge, -inghe (“-ing”) for Old French -age (“-age”).

verb/ˈmɛs.ən.d͡ʒɚ/General-American/ˈmɛs.ən.d͡ʒə/Received-Pronunciation
  1. To send something by messenger.

    transitive
    I'll messenger over the signed documents.
Where this word comes from

From Middle English messengere, messingere, messangere, from Old French messanger, a variant of Old French messagier (French messager), equivalent to message + -er. Doublet of messager. Displaced native Old English boda (“messenger, envoy”) and ǣrendraca (“messenger, ambassador”). For the replacement of -ager with -enger, -inger, -anger, compare passenger, harbinger, scavenger, porringer. This development may have been merely the addition of n, or it may have resulted due to contamination from other suffixes such as Middle English -ing and the rare Old French -ange, -enc, -inge, -inghe (“-ing”) for Old French -age (“-age”).

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.