IdiomDaily LifeEnglish

get the message

Meaning: To understand something that is only hinted at, perhaps because it is unpleasant.

Example: “When she didn't answer his calls for a week, he finally got the message.”

Origin: "Message" traces through Old French to Vulgar Latin missaticum, itself from Latin mittere, to send — at its root, always something dispatched from one person to another to be understood. The specific idiom "get the message," meaning to grasp what someone is implying without it being spelled out directly, is dated to around 1960. The figurative sense extends the literal one in an obvious direction: just as a sent message accomplishes nothing until its recipient actually reads and understands it, an indirect hint or unspoken signal only "lands" once the other person has genuinely picked up on what was being communicated.

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