Send, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Sent (; p. pr. & vb. n. Sending.]
Etymology: [AS. sendan; akin to OS. sendian, D. zenden, G. senden, OHG. senten, Icel. senda, Sw. sända, Dan. sende, Goth. sandjan, and to Goth. sinp a time (properly, a going), gasinpa companion, OHG. sind journey, AS. si, Icel. sinni a walk, journey, a time. W. hynt a way, journey, OIr. s. Cf. Sense.]
1. To cause to go in any manner; to dispatch; to commission or direct to go; as, to send a messenger. I have not sent these prophets, yet they ran. Jer. xxiii. 21. I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me. John viii. 42. Servants, sent on messages, stay out somewhat longer than the message requires. Swift.
2. To give motion to; to cause to be borne or carried; to procure the going, transmission, or delivery of; as, to send a message. He . . . sent letters by posts on horseback. Esther viii. 10. O send out thy light an thy truth; let them lead me. Ps. xliii. 3.
3. To emit; to impel; to cast; to throw; to hurl; as, to send a ball, an arrow, or the like.
4. To cause to be or to happen; to bestow; to inflict; to grant; -- sometimes followed by a dependent proposition. "God send him well!" Shak. The Lord shall send upon thee cursing, vexation, and rebuke. Deut. xxviii. 20. And sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. Matt. v. 45. God send your mission may bring back peace. Sir W. Scott.
2 other Webster entries under this spelling
Send, v. i.
1. To dispatch an agent or messenger to convey a message, or to do an errand. See ye how this son of a murderer hath sent to take away my head 2 Kings vi. 32.
2. (Naut.)
To pitch; as, the ship sends forward so violently as to endanger her masts. Totten. To send for, to request or require by message to come or be brought.
Send, n. (Naut.)
The impulse of a wave by which a vessel is carried bodily. [Written also scend.] W. C. Russell. "The send of the sea". Longfellow.
Shades of meaning
To send is to cause to go or pass from one place to another, and always in fact or thought away from the agent or agency that controls the act. Send in its most common use involves personal agency without personal presence; according to the adage, "If you want your business done, go; if not, send;" one sends a letter or a bullet, a messenger or a message. In all the derived uses this same idea controls; if one sends a ball into his own heart, the action is away from the directing hand, and he is viewed as the passive recipient of his own act; it is with an approach to personification that we speak of the bow sending the arrow, or the gun the shot. To despatch is to send hastily or very promptly, ordinarily with a destination in view; to dismiss is to send away from oneself without reference to a destination; as, to dismiss a clerk, an application, or an annoying subject. To discharge is to send away so as to relieve a person or thing of a load; we discharge a gun or discharge the contents; as applied to persons, discharge is a harsher term than dismiss. To emit is to send forth from within, with no reference to a destination; as, the sun emits light and heat. Transmit, from the Latin, is a dignified term, often less vigorous than the Saxon send, but preferable at times in literary or scientific use; as, to transmit the crown, or the feud, from generation to generation; to transmit a charge of electricity. Transmit fixes the attention more on the intervening agency, as send does upon the points of departure and destination.
Prepositions
To send from the hand to or toward (rarely at) a mark; send to a friend by a messenger or by mail; send a person into banishment; send a shell among the enemy.