Before you begin to describe the meaning of the word "messenger", you need to understand the history of this term and the profession itself. The etymology of the word is rooted in antiquity. The messenger is historicism, which refers to a person sending messages from military leaders to the government. It is worth noting that wealthy nobles could also afford such a function and used it everywhere. In some areas of the Grand Duchy of Moscow, messengers were called seunch.
"Ancient Couriers"
Saying this, of course, can only be a joke. A messenger is a deliveryman who specializes only in the transportation of written materials. He can be compared remotely with a courier, but his duties are more similar to the work of a postman, although there have been cases when messengers carried small parcels. It was the messengers who were most often used in order to spread the news of the war to the whole country. Very rarely did they disseminate information with a positive context (the marriage of a king or the inauguration of a hetman).
Their image often appears in the culture and literature of the Slavic peoples. Messengers were also mentioned in the most famous works of Russian classics. In the service of the Tsar of the Principality of Moscow there were several dozen of them. They were selected among the most agile and fastest. This was due to the fact that letters were often intercepted and the safety of the package depended directly on the capabilities of the messenger.
A messenger is a postman. Next stage
The sending system, like any other sphere of human life, did not remain in place. The messengers gradually began to unite in state organizations, which in the future allowed a person of any social status to use the letter delivery service. For all mankind, this was a big step, uniting all continents, and every messenger understood this. The profession has received great respect, as evidenced by thousands of monuments located in all parts of the world. As a consequence of this, even in Russia, they received the international name of Italian origin "postman". The first mention of this word dates back to 1716.
In Soviet Russia, it was not used, since workers in this area were called letter carriers.
Courier - a modern delivery man
To date, the profession of a deliveryman is divided between couriers and postmen. In the middle of the 20th century, the first private companies started to deliver letters and parcels, and now everything else, even reaching the delivery of flowers and food. Such organizations are called courier services.
A messenger is a profession that has gone a long historical way, which is of great importance not only in communication, but in the whole human culture.