Other forms: couriers
A courier is the person or the firm that carries something from one door to another and puts it into a hand. The van at the kerb with its engine running, the rider with the hot bag on his back, the man who will not let go of the box until you have signed for it.
The word covers both the company and the human being: you send a passport by courier, and then the courier rings the bell twice and leaves it with a neighbour. Courier carries a note of urgency the ordinary post does not — anything worth a courier is worth more than a stamp — which is why it is also the word in a news report for someone carrying secret papers, or cash, or drugs across a border. A tour courier is a different job again: the guide who travels with a coach party and counts everyone back on at the services. And you have read the word without noticing it, because Courier is the typewriter font that film scripts are still written in.
1nouncourierA company or service that delivers parcels and documents quickly and by hand.~42%
“The contract went out by courier the same afternoon.”
synonyms: delivery service
2nounworkerA person whose job is delivering parcels and letters by hand.~42%
“The courier left the box on the step and took a photograph of it.”
3nouncarriesSomeone who carries something secretly — money, messages, or drugs.~14%
“He was stopped at the airport and charged as a courier.”
4nounguideA guide who travels with a group of tourists and looks after the arrangements.~2%
“The courier counted everyone back onto the coach.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 83 sentences found in the wild and placed 21 of them on a sense (62 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
COUR-ier → CARRY
A man in a yellow jacket runs up nine floors of stairs with a box he has to carry to the top before noon. He takes the steps two at a time, arms round the box, and he is knocking on the door with his elbow at five to.
hooks ontocarry
A courier was a runner. Old French corir meant to run, and a coreor was the one who did it — the man sent off at a sprint with the message in his fist. English then took the word twice over, once from French and once as the Italian corriere, and the two fell together into a single spelling. Nothing in it says van or bicycle. It says run.
Proto-Indo-European
*ḱers-
Old French
coreor
Middle English
corour
English, today
courier
Built from
From a convergence of Middle English corour, currour, from Old French coreor, agent noun of corir (“to run”), and Middle English courier, a borrowing of Middle French courrier, from Italian corriere.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA