Errand Meaning
/ˈɛɹənd/Definition, CEFR level C1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
nounA journey undertaken to accomplish some task.
nounA journey undertaken to accomplish some task., A mission or quest.
Sentence Examples
Tom was sent on an errand to the store.
Will you go out on an errand?
CEFR Practice Quiz
She had to run a quick ____ to buy milk and bread.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
I have to run a quick ____ to the post office before it closes at five.
Word Origin & History
From Middle English erande, erende, from Old English ǣrende, from Proto-West Germanic *ārundī (“message, errand”).
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"What will ye, said King Arthur, and what is your errand?"
— 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:
"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:
"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:
"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:
Explore More C1 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
She had to run a quick ____ to buy milk and bread.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
I have to run a quick ____ to the post office before it closes at five.