messenger









messenger


noun

  1. a person who carries a message or goes on an errand for another, especially as a matter of duty or business.
  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.

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

n.c.1200, messager, from Old French messagier “messenger, envoy, ambassador,” from message (see message (n.)). With parasitic -n- inserted by c.1300 for no apparent reason except that people liked to say it that way (cf. passenger, harbinger, scavenger).

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