Word.ws English Dictionary

errand

/ˈɛɹənd/

errand noun: a mission or quest.

Noun

errand (plural errands)

  1. (archaic, literary) A mission or quest.
    • 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...
    • 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.)
    • The errands before he could start the project included getting material at the store and getting the tools he had lent his neighbors.
    • I'm going to town on some errands.
    Synonyms:
    run
  3. 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....1910, Emerson Hough, chapter II, in The Purchase Price: Or The Cause of Compromise, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC
  4. 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

Verb

errand (third-person singular simple present errands, present participle erranding, simple past and past participle erranded)

  1. (transitive) To send someone on an errand.
    • All the servants were on holiday or erranded out of the house.
  2. (intransitive) To go on an errand.
    • She spent an enjoyable afternoon erranding in the city.

errand meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Malayalam and Kannada

errand in Tamil

குற்றேவல், சிறு சிறு வெளிவேலை, தூது, தூது போதல், பயண நோக்கம்

errand in Urdu

عرض, کام, پیغام

errand in Malayalam

chore, task, job
ദൗത്യം, ദൗത്യയാത്ര, ചുമതല, കർത്തവ്യം, കർത്തവ്യത, ജോലി

errand in Kannada

ದೌತ್ಯ, ಕೆಲಸದ ಮೇಲೆ ಕಳುಹಿಸುವುದು, ಸಂದೇಶವನ್ನು ಕೊಂಡೊಯ್ಯುವುದು, ಕೆಲಸ ಕಾರ್ಯಗಳಿಗಾಗಿ ಮಾಡುವ ಕಿರುಪ್ರಯಾಣ, ಗುರಿ, ಉದ್ದೇಶ
More languagesFewer languages
errand in Sanskrit
अस्मेहिति asméhiti

Examples of errand in a sentence

  • Wow! Laundry, dishes, and errands, all in one day? You've been a busy beaver.
  • She sometimes runs errands for me if I'm not well enough to go out.
  • Running errands all day really knocked him out.

All 32 example sentences with errand

Synonyms of errand

Forms of errand

Noun
pluralerrands
alternative formarrand
Verb
third-person singular presenterrands
present participleerranding
past participleerranded
pasterranded

Plural of errand: errands

Origin of errand

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

Words formed from errand

Phrases with errand

Words that rhyme with errand

Questions about errand

What does errand mean?
Errand means a mission or quest.
What is errand in Tamil?
Errand in Tamil is குற்றேவல், சிறு சிறு வெளிவேலை, தூது. See Errand meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is errand?
Errand can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce errand?
Errand is pronounced /ˈɛɹənd/.
What is the plural of errand?
The plural of errand is errands.

Words near errand in the dictionary

  1. errabund
  2. erradicate
  3. Erraid
  4. errancies
  5. errancy
  6. errand
  7. errand boy
  8. errand boys
  9. errand ghost
  10. errand ghosts
  11. errand-ghost

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: errand (page history and authors); errand (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); errand (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); errand (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); errand (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); अस्मेहिति (Sanskrit) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-errand.ogg.

Cite this entry: “errand.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/errand. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.