Etymologically
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message

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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

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