Communique

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An official announcement or statement issued by a government, organization, or authority to inform the public
2. A formal message released by an official body or spokesperson to convey information to a wider audience
3. An authoritative written statement or declaration distributed publicly by an organization or governing body

Etymology: Before it named an official announcement, the root sense was simply "shared" or "made common." It comes from the Latin "communicare," meaning "to share, impart, or make common," which itself grew from "communis," "common." French kept that sense of sharing in "communiquer," and its past participle, "communiqué," came to mean something that has been made known. The official-statement sense developed in French, where a communiqué became a formal announcement issued by a government, military command, or other authority. English borrowed the French form and kept its accent, a detail many writers now drop. The word's core idea, something passed from one party to another in order to be shared, remains intact in its modern use.

Synonyms: message, dispatch, bulletin, announcement