messenger

/ˈmɛsndʒər/

/ˈmɛsɪndʒə/

Other forms: messengers

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."

Definitions of messenger

1. noun

   a person who carries a message
   synonyms: courier

   types:

   conveyer, conveyor

   a person who conveys (carries or transmits)

   dispatch rider

   a messenger who carries military dispatches (usually on a motorcycle)

   herald, trumpeter

   (formal) a person who announces important news

   bearer

   a messenger who bears or presents

   errand boy, messenger boy

   a boy who earns money by running errands

   process-server

   someone who personally delivers a process (a writ compelling attendance in court) or court papers to the defendant

   runner

   a person who is employed to deliver messages or documents

   page, pageboy

   someone who is employed to run errands

   type of:

   traveler, traveller

   a person who changes location