Meaning
To blame, punish, or turn on the person who delivers unwelcome news instead of dealing with the news itself or its true cause. Almost always used in warnings or criticism, most often in the negative command telling someone not to do it. Informal to neutral; nearly always appears as a warning against scapegoating. Regional use: General English (ancient literary lineage).
Origin
The sentiment is ancient. Sophocles' Antigone (about 442 BC) observes that no one loves the bringer of bad news, and Plutarch's Life of Lucullus tells of Tigranes of Armenia beheading the first messengers who reported the Roman approach, until no one dared bring him intelligence at all. Shakespeare dramatised the idea in Henry IV Part 2 (1598), 'the first bringer of unwelcome news hath but a losing office', and in Antony and Cleopatra, where a messenger protests that he 'made not the match' he reports. The short modern wording, usually as 'don't shoot the messenger', is a 20th-century formulation of this old idea; a reliable first attestation of the exact phrase has not been traced in the standard reference works.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- blame the messenger
- don't kill the messenger
- kill the messenger
Usage Examples
- Investors shot the messenger when the auditor's report arrived, demanding her resignation within the hour.
- Don't shoot the messenger; I only booked the venue, I didn't order the rain.
- Nurses say the hardest part of delivering bad test results is the families who shoot the messenger.