envoy - Wiktionary, the free dictionary (original) (raw)

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

From French envoyé (“envoy, messenger”), from envoyer (“send”).

envoy (plural envoys)

  1. (law) A diplomatic agent of the second rank, next in status after an ambassador.
  2. A representative.
    special envoy to the United Nations
    • 1887, W. P. Groeneveldt, “Notes on the Malay Archipelago and Malacca”, in Miscellaneous Papers Relating to Indo-China and the Indian Archipelago‎[1], volume I, London: Trübner & Co., →OCLC, page 165:
      In the year 1460 the king Tu-ma-pan (Tumapel?)† sent envoys to carry tribute. When these envoys went back, and had arrived at An-ch’ing,‡ they got drunk and had a fight with foreign priests who came to bring tribute, and of whom six were killed.
  3. A diplomat.
  4. A messenger.
  5. (poetry) Alternative spelling of envoi (“short stanza at end of poem”).

representative