message

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ˈmes.ɪdʒ/^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English message,^[2][3] borrowed from Old French message (“message, news, tidings, embassy”),^[4][3] from Medieval Latin missāticum,^[4][2] from Latin missus (“a sending”), the past participle of mittere (“to release, let go; send”),^[4][2] with the suffix -āticum.^[5] Barnhart thinks the English word was probably also partly a back-formation from the earlier messager, “messenger”.^[3] It is related to mission, missile and Mass.^[6][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

A communication sent through a messenger: about 1300,^[4] probably about 1300,^[3] or 1297.^[7] In Old English the Latin word was glossed by ærende.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The business entrusted to a messenger, an errand, is from about 1290.^[7] In religious use a message was a divinely inspired communication through a prophet, from the 1540s (1546),^[4][7] which led to the general sense “the broad meaning or lesson of something” by 1828.^[4] An official communication from the sovereign to Parliament is from 1566.^[7] A telegraph message is from 1847.^[7] To get the message, “to understand”, is by 1960.^[4][7] To shoot the messenger is recorded only from the 1960s, though the idea is at least as old as Shakespeare.^[6] The verb, “to send as a message”, is from 1582^[5] or 1583,^[7] was marked obsolete in the Century Dictionary (1895), and was revived for sending electronic messages by 1992.^[4]

Timeline

• c. 1290 – an errand.^[7]
• 1297 – a communication.^[7]
• 1546 – a prophet's message.^[7]
• 1566 – a message from the sovereign.^[7]
• 1583 – verb, to send as a message.^[7]
• 1828 – the meaning of something.^[4]
• 1847 – a telegraph message.^[7]
• 1960 – get the message.^[4]
• 1992 – verb, to send an electronic message.^[4]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. A spoken, written or electronic communication sent from one person to another.
2. The main point or meaning of something, such as a book or speech.
3. A lesson or moral: a film with a message.
4. A formal statement sent to a body: the President's message to Congress.

Verb

1. To send a message to, especially electronically.

Word family

• intermessage
• message board
• message unit

Related words

• messenger
• mission
• missile
• dismiss
• emit
• promise
• Mass
• errand

References

1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
2. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (2000), 4th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
3. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press