messenger – English noun declension

English noun forms of messenger

Noun: messenger
Singularmessenger
Pluralmessengers

Sample Sentences

  • The Messenger under the joint Commission of Bankruptcy might have seized the Whole, if they had remained in their Warehouse [(Can we date this quote?), James Burrow, Reports of Cases Adjudged in the Court of King's Bench:]
  • The 4 primary messengers include ^([sic]) AOL Instant Messenger, ICQ, Yahoo! Messenger, and MSN Messenger. [2006, United States. Congress. House. Committee on Energy and Commerce. Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, Sexual exploitation of children over the Internet, page 395:]
  • Have them meet you on your favorite messenger program. IMs provide a means of instant chat without waiting on someone to respond back to you. [2010, Tim Collins, A Woman's Guide to Internet Dating, A Male Perspective, page 49:]
  • a messenger of doom

Etymology

1. 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.
2. Displaced native Old English boda (“messenger, envoy”) and ǣrendraca (“messenger, ambassador”).
3. 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”). See: Middle English Nouns 'messengere', French Nouns 'messager'.

Verbs referencing "messenger"

Finnish Nouns mese, Galician Nouns mensaxeiro, Russian Nouns мессенджер, Ukrainian Nouns месенджер.