the.com/dispatch
To send with purpose, or the news that arrives before you're ready for it.
means To send something off quickly and officially, to finish a task with brisk efficiency, or the message/report that results.
from Traces back to the Old Italian 'dispacciare' and Spanish 'despachar,' meaning to expedite or hurry something along, built from the Latin prefix 'dis-' (undoing, away) plus a root tied to 'impedire' (to impede, to hinder with the feet — from 'pes,' foot). So the word's deep sense is almost literally 'to un-shackle the feet' — to free something from delay and send it on its way. It entered English in the 1500s carrying that same urgency, which is why a dispatch is never leisurely: it's news or an order moving with its feet finally loose.
- origin
- from despachar, to hasten or expedite
- dual meaning
- can mean send away or kill off
- newsroom use
- a report filed from the field
- speed implied
- always faster than a letter