get the message

phrase

: understand something that is not being said directly

When she didn't return my phone calls, I finally got the message. [=finally understood that she did not want to talk to me]

Examples of get the message in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

No clue who was blowing the whistle the whole time, but, clearly, nobody got the message. — Zach Dean Outkick, FOXNews.com, 3 Oct. 2026

The public got the message, with some parents keeping their children indoors while police and herpetologists scoured that backyard for the snake. — Hannah Fry, Los Angeles Times, 1 Oct. 2026

Milwaukee Brewers rookie Cooper Pratt certainly got the message sent by manager Pat Murphy on Tuesday night. — ABC News, 26 Aug. 2026

Seneca, the Roman philosopher, argued that people kept getting the message of Homer’s epic poems wrong. — John Blake, CNN Money, 2 Aug. 2026

Word History

First Known Use

1959, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for get the message

• expressage
• presage