errand

plural errands · alternative arrand

1. A journey undertaken to accomplish some task.
   1. archaicliteraryA mission or quest.

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

      “What do you want”, said King Arthur, “and what is your mission?”

      1470–1485 (date produced), Thomas Malory, “Capitulum XXIII”, in [Le Morte Darthur], book VII, [London: […] by William Caxton], published 31 July 1485, →OCLC; republished as H[einrich] Oskar Sommer, editor, Le Morte Darthur […], London: David Nutt, […], 1889, →OCLC, page 217

      1 more example

      Few have ever come hither through greater peril or on an errand more urgent. In this evil hour I have come on an errand over many dangerous leagues to Elrond: a hundred and ten days I have journeyed all alone.

      1954, J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

      Synonyms: run

   2. A mundane mission of no great consequence, concerning household or business affairs (dropping items by, doing paperwork, going to a friend's house, etc.)

      I'm going to town on some errands.

      1 more example

      The errands before he could start the project included getting material at the store and getting the tools he had lent his neighbors.

      Synonyms: run

2. The purpose of such a journey.

   1 more example

   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.

   1910, Emerson Hough, chapter II, in The Purchase Price: Or The Cause of Compromise, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC

3. 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.

   1633, John Donne, Elegy VII

present singular third person errands · participle present erranding · participle past erranded · past erranded · alternative arrand

1. transitiveTo send someone on an errand.

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

2. intransitiveTo go on an errand.

   She spent an enjoyable afternoon erranding in the city.