messenger
Meanings
Plural: messengers
Noun
- a person who carries a message
- One who brings messages.
- The secretary bird.
- The supporting member of an aerial cable (electric power or telephone or data).
- 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.
- An instant messenger program.
- A forerunner or harbinger.
- A light scudding cloud preceding a storm.
- A piece of paper, etc., blown up a string to a kite.
- A light line with which a heavier line may be hauled e.g. from the deck of a ship to the pier.
- A weight dropped down a line to close a Nansen bottle.
- A messenger-at-arms.
- A pin which travels across the pin deck to knock over another pin, usually for a strike.
Verb
- To send something by messenger.
Origin / Etymology
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”).
Synonyms
Scrabble Score: 12
messenger is a valid Scrabble (US) TWL wordmessenger is a valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
messenger is a valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary