errand

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A journey undertaken to accomplish some task.

   What will ye, said King Arthur, and what is your errand?

2. 2
   noun

   The purpose of such a journey.

   Carried somehow, somewhither, for some reason, on these surging floods, were these travelers, of errand not wholly obvious to their fellows, yet of such sort as to call into query alike the nature of their errand and their own relations. It is easily earned repetition to state that Josephine St. Auban's was a presence not to be concealed.

3. 3
   noun

   An oral message trusted to a person for delivery.

   I had not taught thee then the alphabet Of flowers, how they, devicefully being set And bound up, might with speechless secrecy Deliver errands mutely and mutually.

4. 4
   verb

   To send someone on an errand.

   All the servants were on holiday or erranded out of the house.

From Middle English erande, erende, from Old English ǣrende, from Proto-West Germanic *ārundī (“message, errand”).

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