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Errand   Listen
noun
Errand  n.  
1.
A special business intrusted to a messenger; something to be told or done by one sent somewhere for the purpose; often, a verbal message; a commission; as, the servant was sent on an errand; to do an errand. Also, one's purpose in going anywhere. "I have a secret errand to thee, O king." "I will not eat till I have told mine errand."
2.
Any specific task, usually of a routine nature, requiring some form of travel, usually locally. An errand is often on behalf of someone else, but sometimes for one's own purposes.
3.
A mission.
To run an errand, To perform an errand (2).






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Errand" Quotes from Famous Books



... and to enjoin me to continue in Galilee, and to order Jonathan and his colleagues to depart out of it." When I had suggested these instructions to them, and while they were getting themselves ready as fast as they could, I sent them on this errand the third day after they had been assembled: I also sent five hundred armed men with them [as a guard]. I then wrote to my friends in Samaria, to take care that they might safely pass through the country: for Samaria was already under the ...
— The Life of Flavius Josephus • Flavius Josephus

... at Ashridge at ten o'clock at night. They insisted on being admitted at once into the chamber of Elizabeth, and there they made known their errand. Elizabeth was terrified; she begged not to be moved, as she was really too sick to go. They called in some physicians, who certified that she could be moved without danger to her life. The next ...
— Queen Elizabeth - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... and forest lore. No seekers of new homes ever faced greater dangers than the little white vanguard that crossed the Alleghanies into the splendid new land beyond. Hidden death always lurked in the bush, and no man went beyond the palisade even on the commonest errand without his rifle. ...
— The Keepers of the Trail - A Story of the Great Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler

... his mind set upon other things that morning Young Denny forgot it, perhaps there was an even deeper reason for his remissness, but the Judge, while he stood and listened to the boy's tersely short explanation of his errand, was himself too taken up with other thoughts to note the omission. He was already formulating the rounded sentences with which he would introduce the subject that night to the circle in the ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans

... "I hope you have a good list of recruits for me. I don't want to be waiting here, for I have to go on a similar errand to other towns. It is not a job I like, I can tell you, but it is not ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty

... have been drinking without intermission, unchecked by the elders, who feel that going on such an insane errand, abandoning their wives and mothers and renouncing all they hold sacred in order to become a senseless instrument of destruction, would be too agonizing if they ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy

... by an earlier owner was architecturally misplaced for the sole purpose of making a path with curves—and such curves!—instead of a straight and honest one, from the street to the kitchen. When a path is sent on a plain business errand it should never loaf. And yet those lines of a garden's layout which are designed not for business but for pleasure, should never behave as though they were on business; they should loiter just enough to make their guests feel at ...
— The Amateur Garden • George W. Cable

... Company." In 1640 he united with other residents of Mt. Wollaston in a petition for the formation of the town of Braintree. In 1647 he was sent as an officer with a message to the Narragansett Indians, and went on a similar errand in 1653. In 1654 we find him occupying the honorable and difficult position of marshal of the Massachusetts colony, a post which he seems to have filled to the satisfaction of the colonists for many years, and in which he was succeeded, as ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, January 1886 - Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 1, January, 1886 • Various

... their skin, as Esau had a rough, hairy skin and Jacob a smooth one. The mother put skins of kids upon Jacob's hands and neck and bade him go to his father pretending to be Esau, and seek his blessing. The trick was successful, and when a little later Esau himself came to his father on the same errand, he found that he had been superseded. Naturally he was very angry, and vowed vengeance on his brother. Jacob, fearing for his life, fled into a place ...
— Rembrandt - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures and a Portrait of the - Painter with Introduction and Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll

... one of the other guests, and started impetuously on his self-imposed errand. He had lied about the short cut, and about the half-hour. He would have lied up to the hilt if it had been required of him, because his instinct—that instinct which had saved him untold times from blundering—warned him that danger was at hand. It told him that it was now or never, and the realization ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie

... was a beautiful girl and totally innocent, in as far as I knew, of any of the wrong which had certainly been perpetrated by some members of her family. It would never do to mortify her or to mar the pleasure of her wedding-day by any such scene as my errand probably involved. She must be saved sorrow even if her mother—But at that instant the vague but pathetic form of another young girl flitted in imagination before my eyes, and I asked myself if I had not ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green

... wonder gives place to laughter, the apotheosis of the flesh to the spirit of comedy. The enchanter turns harlequin; and what the lovers ask is not the annihilation of time and space but only that the father be at his prayers, or the husband gone on a fool's errand, while they have leave to kiss each other's mouths, 'as a pigeon feedeth her young,' to touch the lute, strip language naked, and 'repeat the following verses' to a ring of laughing girls and amid all such comfits and delicates as a hungry audience may rejoice to hear enumerated. ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley

... compliment to the representative of my country, who sends you—so his card reads—'charged with an explanation of his unavoidable absence.' As minister-extraordinary, may I venture to remind Mr. Laurance of his errand?" ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... mountains. We crossed the stream and encamped on the other side. Scarcely had we unsaddled our horses, when we perceived coming towards us a large party of savages, whose war paint, with the bleeding scalps hanging to their belts, plainly showed the errand from which they were returning; they encamped on the other side of the stream, within quarter of a ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat

... alone in the shop, for he had sent Koku on an errand, and Eradicate was off in a distant part of the grounds, doing some whitewashing, which was his specialty. Ned had not come over, and Mr. Swift, having gone to see some friends, and Mrs. Baggert being at the store, Tom, at this particular ...
— Tom Swift and his Wizard Camera - or, Thrilling Adventures while taking Moving Pictures • Victor Appleton

... the rendezvous he saw a messenger dispatched by Yellow Franz, and from the repeated gestures toward himself that had accompanied the giant's instructions to his emissary, Barney was positive that the man's errand had to do ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... Hiram, in a pathetic tone, 'I hate to go back and meet father. He said he presumed you had forgotten him, though he remembered you when you lived in Sudbury, a young man about my age; and he told me to make an engagement with you, if it were only as errand-boy.' ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... Alex made up a bundle and forced the haft of an ax under the string; but as the young man started away the colonel suddenly remembered his errand ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey

... Extraordinary Ambassador's negotiation, and the performance of his Majesty's commands to show his present necessities, which he was sent to Philip IV. for, in hopes of a present supply of money, which our King then lacked; but finding no good to be done on that errand, he and I, accompanied by Dr. Bell, of Jesus College in Cambridge, who had been his tutor, went a day's journey together towards St. Sebastian, ...
— Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe • Lady Fanshawe

... with gentlemen, broken-down and lost, it is true, but well-bred, to be able to ape their manners; and the devil's instinct that such people possess warned him of Hitty Hyde's weakest points. So, too, he contrived to make that first errand lead to another, and still another,—to make the solitary woman depend on his help, and expect his coming; fifty thousand dollars, with no more incumbrance than such a woman, was worth scheming for, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various

... answering it. Why? Was he a bad shot and ashamed of it? Had he preferred to say that he had taken the wrong ammunition rather than admit that he could get no bag? That must be the explanation, because there was no other. Certainly no imaginable errand but the one assigned could have taken the captain to the ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon

... remember) Mr. Towse tould me that ye Apparition instructed him what message he should deliver unto ye Duke. Vnto wch. Mr. Towse replyed that he should be very unwilling to goe to ye Duke of Buckingham upon such an errand, whereby he should gaine nothing but reproach and contempt, and to be esteemed a Madman, and therefore desired to be exscused from ye employment, but ye Apparition pressd him wth. much earnestness to undertake it, telling him that ye Circumstances and secret Discoveries which he should ...
— The Book of Dreams and Ghosts • Andrew Lang

... manner of his death, we too, the five score young men, leaped to the shore and followed Lone Chief into the village. Only the Mukumuks did not understand, and thought we had come to fight; so their bow-thongs sang and their arrows whistled among us. Whereat we forgot our errand, and fell upon them with our spears and clubs; and they being ...
— Children of the Frost • Jack London

... errand and selected some samples of stationery paper. The manager then showed them over the mills and Aunt Selina whispered aside to Mrs. Talmage: "What an interesting article this ...
— The Blue Birds' Winter Nest • Lillian Elizabeth Roy

... errand? which road?" Dr. Beaumont was silent. It was proposed by some of the party to break into ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West

... spokesman, however, deems it strict etiquette at first to prevaricate concerning the real nature of his errand, and consequently the actor told a cock-and-bull story about the purchase of a horse; rather a transparent bit of make-believe considering the matter ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie

... seemed also to feel a curiosity as to his errand, for he stopped a very old, shambling horse to lean from his seat and ask point-blank: "Where may you be going in such a hurry on such ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs

... do an errand for Mother," he said. "Now, youngsters, I won't be long, and every one of you stay in the car till I come back. I don't want to have to hunt up missing boys when it's time ...
— Sunny Boy in the Big City • Ramy Allison White

... master: 'I know' quoth he 'no house, no wife, no mistress:' So that my errand, due unto my tongue, I thank him, I bare home upon my shoulders; For, in conclusion, he did ...
— The Comedy of Errors • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]

... been thrown to the ground by the strength of the prisoned forces which he gathered and loosed upon their unholy errand, but, as I rejoiced to observe, had suffered from them much more than ourselves. Doubtless this was owing to the fact that he had sprung forward in a last wild effort to save his daughter, or to prevent her from interfering with his experiment, I know not which. As a result his right cheek ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard

... left the house upon their errand, but they did not enter the workshop on their way. Indeed, if they had, they would have been surprised to find that Marzio was not there, and that Gianbattista was consequently not talking to him as ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford

... occurrences. For when the Thebans had expelled the garrison, and asserted their liberty, he, accusing them of the murder of Archias and Leontidas, who indeed were tyrants, though in name holding the office of Polemarchs, made war upon them. He sent Cleombrotus on that errand, who was now his fellow king, in the place of Agesipolis, who was dead, excusing himself by reason of his age; for it was forty years since he had first borne arms, and he was consequently exempt by the law; meanwhile the true reason was, that he was ashamed, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... the clerk to the errand-boy, who was standing in the hack part of the store. "Bring a glass of water from the ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach

... for the errand cart, were numerous; and there were many stoppages to take them in and give them out, which were not by any means the worst parts of the journey. Some people were so full of expectation about their parcels, and other people were so full of wonder about their parcels, and other people were so ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens

... plodded out after Dorothy. Bondsman trailed lazily behind. Because Shoop had not picked up his hat the big dog knew that his master's errand, whatever it was, would be brief. Yet Bondsman followed, stopping to yawn and stretch the stiffness of age from his shaggy legs. There was really no sense in trotting across the street with his master just to trot back again in ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert

... her, and Christie determined to say nothing about the matter till the visitor should be gone. But the prospect of a long day in the solitary nursery did not tend to brighten her face, and it was sadly enough that she went slowly down the street on an errand for Nelly ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson

... down and rest. Just stay right here and keep your eye on things out front—and I'll go get the sheriff." And the storekeeper coaxed and soothed Pete into giving up his rifles. Promising to return at once, the storekeeper set out on his errand, shaking his head gravely. Annersley had been a good man, a man who commanded affection and respect from most persons. And now the T-Bar-T men "had got him." The storekeeper was not half so surprised as he was grieved. He had had an idea that something ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs

... Youldeh, where a depot was formed. From this place they shifted north to a native well, Oaldabinna. As the water supply here proved but scanty, Giles started off to the westward to search for a better place, sending Tietkins to the north on a similar errand accompanied ...
— The Explorers of Australia and their Life-work • Ernest Favenc

... replenished during the night, and by 6 a.m. that which was a human being is a small heap of ashes, which is placed in an urn by the relatives and is honourably interred. In some cases the priests accompany the relations on this last mournful errand. Thirteen bodies were burned the night before my visit, but there was not the slightest odour in or about the building, and the interpreter told me that, owing to the height of the chimneys, the people of the neighbourhood never experience the least annoyance, even while the ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird

... without rising, and said to him, 'O my lord, excuse me if I do not rise to thee, as is thy due; indeed, I am unable to do so.' 'I hold thee excused, O youth!' answered the King. 'I am thy guest and come to thee on a pressing errand, beseeching thee to expound to me the mystery of the lake and the fish and of this palace, and why thou sittest here alone and weeping.' When the young man heard this, the tears ran down his cheeks and he wept sore, till his breast was drenched, and ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous

... de logis du palais, to whom I was obliged to shew every apartment in the house, and who, to my no small dismay, announced "that the emperor would probably lodge there that night." The man, having despatched his errand in great haste, immediately departed. I communicated the unexpected intelligence to the aid-de-camp of general Pajol, but expressly observed that I had great doubts about it, as the marechal de logis himself had not spoken positively. The aid-de-camp ...
— Frederic Shoberl Narrative of the Most Remarkable Events Which Occurred In and Near Leipzig • Frederic Shoberl (1775-1853)

... not know MacNair. You, personally, he would not venture to molest. He will doubtless try to buy supplies from you or from the Hudson Bay Company. But, in the meantime, while he is upon this errand, his Indians, with no one to hold them in check, and knowing that the supplies are in your storehouse, will swoop down upon it, and your own Indians, without a leader, will fall an easy prey to the ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx

... out all that way purposely to see him. He was kept waiting an hour, and then when he explained his errand the Marquis laughed at him. 'My dear fellow,' he said, 'the poor people of Medchester do not interest me in the least. I do not go to the people who are better off than I am and ask them to help support me, nor do I see the least ...
— A Prince of Sinners • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... no one ever called upon you on such a ridiculous errand. You won't think me an idiot, ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various

... great success," said Bjelke, and to himself relished the full grimness of his joke. For a terrible joke it was, seeing that he no longer intended to discharge the errand which had brought him in such haste ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini

... meet greater than this suspense, which you've borne with such courage, you want all your strength for it. I beg you to trust me to do this for you. I know that it seems recreant to let another go in your place on such an errand, but it really isn't so. You ought to know that I wouldn't offer to go if I were not sure that I could do all that you could do, and more. Come! Let me go ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells

... India must have a personal servant, a native who performs the duty of valet, waiter and errand boy and does other things that he is told. It is said to be impossible to do without one and I am inclined to think that is true, for it is a fixed custom of the country, and when a stranger attempts to resist, or avoid or reform ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis

... much the same way when she came down, an arm around her, his big shoulders thrown back as though he would guard her against the world. But he was very uneasy and depressed, at that. He had come on a difficult errand, and because he had no finesse he blundered badly. It was some time before she gathered the full meaning ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... aunt. See, it has her name on it, Madame Antoinette Duclos. It came to the lodging-house in Fifty-third Street just after she left, and I was asked to bring it to her. I was going to your house as soon as I had done my little errand at this store, but now that I have met you, I will ask you to see ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green

... to put on, though she must go immediately with her father before the Count. It was the bailiffs errand to say this. While she made herself as neat as she could, and her father was called in from the field (to which he had gone straight from the ponds, because he knew there was no meal ready for him at home), the bailiff examined the premises, followed at ...
— The Peasant and the Prince • Harriet Martineau

... trusty gun lay close beside me. I seized it, and, half-rising, so that the fire behind me afforded light for a steady aim, I leveled it exactly between the eyes. I fired, the bullet sped on its deadly errand, and the crack of the noble rifle, thundering against the steep rocks, returned ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders

... Wasp to pass through the blockading forces, and that vessel returned to its accustomed anchorage. Remonstrance having been made against this refusal, it was promptly overruled, and the Wasp therefore resumed her errand, received Mr. Washburn and his family, and conveyed them to a safe and convenient seaport. In the meantime an excited controversy had arisen between the President of Paraguay and the late United States minister, which, it is understood, grew out of his proceedings in giving asylum in the United ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Andrew Johnson • Andrew Johnson

... safety. A thousand times had I vowed never again to employ the dangerous talent which I possessed; but such was the force of habit and the influence of present convenience, that I used this method of arresting his progress and leading him back to the house, with his errand, whatever it was, unperformed. I had often caught parts, from my station below, of your conversation in this place, and was well acquainted with the voice ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown

... upon his errand, leaving his master sick with the heat and fever of his hurt. When he was gone, Gugemar tore the hem from his shirt, and bound it straitly about his wound. He climbed painfully upon the saddle, and departed without more ado, for he was with child to be gone before any could come ...
— French Mediaeval Romances from the Lays of Marie de France • Marie de France

... trust to forcing her way in on the day of the ceremony of abdication, for every place in the limited space assigned to spectators had been carefully allotted, and no one would be permitted to enter the palace without a pass. When, after many a futile errand, she had been refused also by the lord chamberlain, she turned her steps to Baron ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... frail way, good-looking too, except for the vacant droop of his lower lip. Under our excellent system of compulsory education he had learned to read and write, notwithstanding the unfavourable aspect of the lower lip. But as errand-boy he did not turn out a great success. He forgot his messages; he was easily diverted from the straight path of duty by the attractions of stray cats and dogs, which he followed down narrow alleys into unsavoury courts; by the comedies of the streets, which he contemplated open-mouthed, to the ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad

... Gloucester. Afterward, he was so far in the confidence of Queen Henrietta Maria, as to be sent as her envoy to the captive king, beseeching him to save his head by conceding the demands of Parliament. When, the errand proving abortive, the royal head was lost, Davenant returned to Paris, consoled himself by finishing the first two books of his "Gondibert," and then, despairing of a restoration, embarked (in 1650) from France for Virginia, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various

... began promptly new defenses. Into the spacious harbor of Chebucto, which three years earlier had been the scene of the sorrows of d'Anville's fleet, there sailed in June, 1749, a considerable British squadron bent on a momentous errand. It carried some thousands of settlers, Edward Cornwallis, a governor clothed with adequate authority, and a force sufficient for the defense of the new foundation. Cornwallis was delighted with the prospect. "All the officers agree the harbour ...
— The Conquest of New France - A Chronicle of the Colonial Wars, Volume 10 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • George M. Wrong

... were fraternizing with the Germans, who were standing about with them in No-man's land, laughing and talking. He went out to them at once, to bring them back to their own trenches. When he came up to his men, he met a German captain who had arrived on the same errand. The two officers, British and German, fell into talk, and while they were standing together, in not unfriendly fashion, one of the men took a snapshot photograph of them, copies of which were afterwards circulated in the trenches. Then the men were recalled to their duty, on the one side and ...
— England and the War • Walter Raleigh

... boon, this errand by the way: Commend me to the man more lov'd than life, Show him the sorrows of ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday

... who might have been a great conqueror but who had chosen to be one of the most enlightened teachers that the world has ever seen. So he sent a retinue to greet Buddha and ask him to return to his native city. One thousand men went forth upon this errand, but none returned, for all were converted by Buddha and remained to listen to his teachings and then to spread the faith themselves. Then King Suddhodana sent another thousand, and these too remained with Buddha. At last, ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards

... off shore, and he regretted that he was not on her. She would get away at any rate, but as for the atoll—A sea breached across, almost sweeping him off his feet, and he selected a tree. Then he remembered the barometer and ran back to the house. He encountered Captain Lynch on the same errand ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London

... on—excuse me saying so—false pretences. I thought you wanted to end the quarrel, to shake hands with him, and have done with it. It wasn't shaking hands you wanted, it seems, but clenched fists. I brought him here on a fool's errand; so ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting

... mean to insinuate—" began Rod hotly; but controlling himself, he continued more calmly, "I didn't know that you had given Dan any orders, and I sent him over to the house on an errand a few minutes ago. Never mind, though, I'll go for your machine myself, and have it here by ...
— Cab and Caboose - The Story of a Railroad Boy • Kirk Munroe

... was hard and practical enough, and might justly cause him to feel that he occupied a humble place, not only in the world of art, but in the world in general. There had been a day of rain, slush, and mud. One of the younger clerks had been sent out on an errand, and came in well splashed. Drawing off his boots, he threw them to Dennis, saying: "Here you, Fleet! black my boots as quick as you can. I ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe

... — N. news; information &c 527; piece of news [Fr.], budget of news, budget of information; intelligence, tidings. word, advice, aviso [Sp.], message; dispatch, despatch; telegram, cable, marconigram^, wire, communication, errand, embassy. report, rumor, hearsay, on dit [Fr.], flying rumor, news stirring, cry, buzz, bruit, fame; talk, oui dire [Fr.], scandal, eavesdropping; town tattle, table talk; tittle tattle; canard, topic of the day, idea afloat. bulletin, fresh ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... errand," was my reply in French, and I must be carried down the river by them, for which I would pay generously. Then, with idle gesture, I said that if they wished some drink, there was a bottle of rum near my fire, above me, to which they were welcome; also some game, which they might take as a gift ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... grave and the bend of his head so courteous that he could not refuse to do as he was asked. But he glanced first at the whiskey bottle standing between the candlesticks; and I knew it boded ill for his errand when Uncle Sam, the most hospitable of men, feigned pure incomprehension of that glance. The man should have no ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore

... six years by William de Rubruquis, a Fleming sent by St. Louis of France on the same errand of conversion and discovery (1253), but by a different route, through the Black Sea, and Cherson, over the Don "at the Head of Azov, that divides Europe and Asia, as the Nile divides Asia and Africa," to the great camp on the Volga, "the greatest river I had ever seen, which ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley

... those despatches," Mr. Harvey continued, "intrusted in duplicate, as you have doubtless surmised, to Fynes and to Coulson, contained an assurance that the sending of our fleet to the Pacific was in fact, as well as in appearance, an errand of peace. It was a demonstration, pure and simple. Behind it there may have lain, indeed, a masterful purpose, the determination of a great country to affirm her strenuous existence in a manner most likely to impress the nations unused to seeing her in such a role. It became necessary, in view ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... deserves a fine messenger. But, sir, if you will do my errand for me, I am content. 'Tis from Madame ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr

... on her errand. She paused on the staircase trembling, and thinking between the thrills how very far would have been the conduct of her poor slighted self from proud recalcitration had Mr. Julian's gentle request been addressed to her instead of to Ethelberta; and she went ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy

... in the midst of his popularity, when Jesus was preaching to a great crowd, she and his brothers appeared on the outside of the throng, and sent a request that they might speak with him. It seems almost certain that the mother's errand was to try to get him away from his exhausting work; he was imperilling his health and his safety. Jesus refused to be interrupted. But it was really only an assertion that nothing must come between him and his duty. The ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller

... of sight when Johnnie started through the snowdrift toward the middle of the street. With difficulty he lifted his little legs out of the deep snow; now and then he stumbled and fell into the soft mass. But he rose only the more determined upon his errand, and kept his eyes fixed on the wreck ...
— The Christmas Angel • Abbie Farwell Brown

... a rock Gaspare watched the two praying women. He had not forgotten his padrone's words, and when Hermione and Lucrezia set off from the cottage he had followed them, faithful to his trust. Intent upon their errand, they had not seen him. His step was light among the stones, and he had kept at a distance. Now he stood still, gazing at them as ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens

... like any other gentleman, and his wife like any other newly married lady. They were both now connected with the family, and even bound to act on the presumption that there would be family friendship. The Dean went on his errand first, and the Dean was admitted into his sitting-room. This happened a day or two after the scene at Cross Hall. "I don't know that I should have troubled you so soon," said the Dean, "had not your ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope

... that pride may reject a public advance, while interest listens to a secret suggestion of advantage. The opportunity has been afforded. At a very early period in the diplomacy of humiliation, a gentleman was sent on an errand, of which, from the motive of it, whatever the event might be, we can never be ashamed. Humanity cannot be degraded by humiliation. It is its very character to submit to such things. There is a consanguinity between benevolence and humility. They are virtues of the same stock. Dignity ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke

... not pursue them, for fear of their vengeance, though all wanted to be rid of them. Four men came from Melbourne with authority for taking these robbers, dead or alive, and with the promise of a large reward. It was impossible to keep their errand a secret, and none of the people dared give them any assistance in consequence of their dread of what the bushrangers might do if they heard of it. I know of one instance where these four men applied to a squatter for a night's lodging and supper. He dared not let his family know about the ...
— The Land of the Kangaroo - Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey through the Great Island Continent • Thomas Wallace Knox

... of the year. Later on, when I put out my fish weirs, I'm pretty busy, but now I'm a sort of 'longshore loafer. You're figurin' to go to Trumet after you've seen Miss Emily leave the dock, you said, didn't you? Well, I've got an errand of my own in Trumet that might as well be done now as any time. I'll drive you over and back if you're willin' to trust the vessel in my hands. I don't set up to be head of the Pilots' Association when it ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln

... Instantly Jerry, stooping down, made a scrambling noise in the leaves, ending with a thump upon the ground. Immediately the Indian relaxed his listening attitude, satisfied that a rabbit was scurrying through the forest upon his own errand bent. Rigidly silent they stood, watching him till long after he had lain down again in his place, then once more they began their painful advance, clearing treacherous twigs from every place where their feet should rest. Fortunately for their going the forest ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor

... had not come to fish this time, yet had an errand aside from a desire to see the spot—namely, to make arrangements for going sharking the ...
— Elsie at Nantucket • Martha Finley

... overwrought imagination, the innocent Child-spirit came back to complete the work of love and pity she had begun in life; but I know that he himself believed otherwise, and, truly, if those who leave us are permitted to return at all, it must be on some such errand as Marjory's. ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey

... go with me to my house and rest, as soon as I have dismissed these boys," said Mr. Conway, earnestly; and turning to Albert and Lyman, who anxiously waited, he spoke to them about their errand. ...
— Tiger and Tom and Other Stories for Boys • Various

... destination, their first business must be to gain some acquaintance with the language of the natives, (for which purpose two would be better than one,) and by all lawful means to endeavour to cultivate a friendship with them, and as soon as possible let them know the errand for which they were sent. They must endeavour to convince them that it was their good alone, which induced them to forsake their friends, and all the comforts of their native country. They must be very careful ...
— An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to Use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens • William Carey

... them. Read some good story to them, or better still, tell them one; not a "fairy-tale," but something real. We have seen parents who scarcely ever spoke to their children only when reproving. Take them with you to the meeting. Take them with you if at all convenient when you go on your charitable errand. Take them for a drive. Take them to the woods and the fields, and there tell ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr

... fill your water bag at the well, since that is what you came for; and I should strongly advise you to terminate your visit as soon as it is consistent with your errand to ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower

... Freshman shall be taken off, or prevented labor, by any errand for an under-graduate, without liberty obtained from the ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith

... to the personality. To have a good memory for names, one needs to give attention and practice to this specific matter. It is the same with memory for errands; it can be specifically trained. Perhaps the best general hint here is to connect the errand beforehand in your mind with the {363} place where you should think, during the day, to ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth

... their ghostly camp-fires seem to burn, and the fitful light is cast around on lord and vassal and black robed priest, mingled with wild forms of savage warriors, knit in close fellowship on the same stern errand. A boundless vision grows upon us: an untamed continent, vast wastes of forest verdure, mountains silent in primeval sleep; river, lake, and glimmering pool; wilderness oceans mingling with the sky. Such was the domain ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine

... "Then woman's errand Is not, like man's, self-culture, self-advancement, But she must simply qualify herself To be a mate for man: no obligation Resting on man to qualify himself To be ...
— The Woman Who Dared • Epes Sargent

... born in Philadelphia in the spring of 1814. He was left an orphan when very young, dependent for support and education wholly upon his own resources. Having been errand-boy in a book-store, and copy-reader in a printing-office, in his fourteenth year he apprenticed himself in a jewelry establishment. Having learned his trade, he removed to Boston, where he remained four years working at his trade, and giving, meanwhile, considerable ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes

... displayed for the purpose of concealing the reality. A person makes a pretense of something for the credit or advantage to be gained by it; he makes what is allowed or approved a pretext for doing what would be opposed or condemned; a tricky schoolboy makes a pretense of doing an errand which he does not do, or he makes the actual doing of an errand a pretext for playing truant. A ruse is something (especially something slight or petty) employed to blind or deceive so as to mask an ulterior design, and enable ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald

... looks, which had a world of evil suggestion in them; so I raised my fist and would have knocked him down, only that I found two young fellows at my elbows, who held me quiet for five minutes, while the old fellow talked to me. He asked me if I came to him on a fool's errand or really to get money; and when I admitted that I had cherished hopes of obtaining a clear two thousand dollars from him, he coolly replied that he knew of but one way in which I could hope to get such an amount, and that if I was too squeamish to adopt it, I had made a mistake ...
— The Staircase At The Hearts Delight - 1894 • Anna Katharine Green (Mrs. Charles Rohlfs)

... just this, Senor Teniente," answered Milsom; "we don't intend to stand any nonsense of any description. You go back to your ship and tell your captain that, since somebody seems to have sent him out on a fool's errand, my owner here, Senor Don John Singleton, will—purely as an act of courtesy, mind you—permit him, or you, to search this ship from stem to stern and from keel to truck, in order that you may thoroughly satisfy ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood

... to his work a bumblebee approached on its glad, piratical errand from flower to flower in the rapt stillness, and Feller looked around with a slight courtesy of ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer

... endeavours to fathom the mystery: for so that strange juxtaposition appears to him. Can it be that the interrupted treaty of peace has been renewed, and friendship re-established between Naraguana and the Paraguayan Dictator? Even now, Valdez may be on a visit to the Tovas tribe on that very errand—a commissioner to arrange new terms of intercourse and amity? It certainly appears as if something of the kind had occurred. And what the Prussian now sees, taken in connection with the abandonment of the village alike matter of mystery—leads him to more than half-suspect there has. For again ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid

... FEELING.—One day last year our laundress sent her oldest boy, a lad fourteen years of age, on an errand. He was gone an hour or more longer than she expected him to be. Upon his return she asked him what he had been doing all that time. He told her that an expressman had been run away with, and had been quite badly hurt. He had helped get the ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 50, No. 6, June 1896 • Various

... Cromwell is, to a certain extent, correct. Divided counsels did keep one of the principal Yorkshire Royalists from the meeting, and he may have had followers; and others were stayed, when on the march, by a timely warning that they were on a fool's errand. But the assertion, that the Royalists were dispersed by a providential movement of troops, and by 'Our Forces marching up and down' Yorkshire, is utterly false. And, as before, the witness against Cromwell is one of Cromwell's ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various

... by Robert; but the second William had no mind to give up anything to which he could lay a claim. He demanded of the French king the surrender of the Vexin, and warned Elias, who had taken the cross, that the holy errand of the crusade would not protect his lands during his absence. War followed in both cases, simultaneous wars, full of the usual incidents, of the besieging of castles, the burning of towns, the laying waste of the open country; wars in which the ruin of his peasantry was almost the only way of ...
— The History of England From the Norman Conquest - to the Death of John (1066-1216) • George Burton Adams

... these were fierce and bloody, and frightful to look at; so I made the best of my way out of the crowd, and with some difficulty rode back among the large number of people who had been upon the same errand as myself. The face of every one spoke a kind of mirth, as if the spectacle they had beheld had afforded pleasure instead of pain, which I am ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward

... mentioning an errand in the village she promptly offered to take me with her in the Staley hack. She had completely altered in manner. The strain was gone. In her soft low voice, as we made our way to the road, she told me the stories of ...
— The Confession • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... uncouth words in the Russian tongue. Breakfast with Russian tongue. He asks the waiter for "minuoschhah karosh caviar." To which the waiter adroitly replies, "parfaitement M'sieu" and disappears. Returning ten minutes afterwards, the wily attendant makes no further allusion to the supposed errand that has taken him out ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 101, September 26, 1891 • Various

... was flung at the barber by one of the women at parting, as a last attempt to get at his errand that way. ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy

... commission, Malcolm slipped from the room, sent Mrs Courthope to take his place, and sped to the schoolmaster. The moment Mr Graham heard the marquis's message, he rose without a word, and led the way from the cottage. Hardly a sentence passed between them as they went, for they were on a solemn errand. ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald

... Ezekiel. Why? You could scarcely find his equal. Why? If he made a mistake, He said he was wrong; If he went on an errand, He wasn't gone long; He never would bully, Although ...
— More Goops and How Not to Be Them • Gelett Burgess

... my brother's name?" inquired the latter, after following the train of his misgivings for a few moments. "You have reason to think that Mr. Landale knew of these men's errand; other reason, I mean, than having seen ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle

... deputies turned homewards, but when they reached the cromlech of Gilgal,* and were safe beyond the reach of the enemy, Ehud retraced his steps, and presenting himself before the palace of Eglon in the attitude of a prophet, announced that he had a secret errand to the king, who thereupon commanded silence, and ordered his servants to leave him with the divine messenger ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... moment," he said, as Ben Zoof was moving away on his, errand; "perhaps I had better go with you myself; the old Jew may make a difficulty about lending us ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne

... this nefarious errand, Yelverton failed to conciliate Buckingham, for he wrote the following very unsatisfactory report ...
— The Curious Case of Lady Purbeck - A Scandal of the XVIIth Century • Thomas Longueville

... old-fashioned head-dress of muslin that strangely became her handsome face. Still standing a little inside the door-way, this cold, reserved woman looked enquiringly, and waited for Guy to speak his errand, whatever ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera

... one day on an errand, when whom should I meet but my old friend Mike ——, my chum of the pig incident. He said, "Hello, Dave, where are you working?" He had a job in a factory in Maiden Lane, at the same wages I was getting. I hadn't seen much of Mike lately, and to tell the truth I didn't ...
— Dave Ranney • Dave Ranney

... street corner, and in such quarters of the town where reside known sympathisers with the attacking party much military movement is noticeable. Every few hundred yards are stationed pickets of gendarmes or barefooted soldados; and after dusk, no matter who you be or what your errand, you stand every chance of a bullet should you fail to give prompt satisfaction on being challenged with ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various

... let off earlier than usual, as there was an errand up this way that fortunately took ...
— Mark Mason's Victory • Horatio Alger

... personality of Mrs, Desternay, and he began to think that she might be of some real help to him. Though a skilled detective, he was of the plodding sort, and never had brilliant or even original ideas. He had had a notion it would have been better to send Driscoll on this errand he was himself attempting, but a touch of jealousy of the younger and more quick-witted man made him determine to ...
— Raspberry Jam • Carolyn Wells

... Rome on a secret mission. His object was to obtain the papal sanction for reforms which had been advocated by Saint Theresa herself. Marmol succeeded to admiration. His antagonists had no suspicion of his errand. A papal brief, dated June 5, 1590, granted the desired sanction; and a second brief, dated June 27, appointed Teutonio de Braganza, Archbishop of Evora, and Luis de Leon to carry the first brief into effect. ...
— Fray Luis de Leon - A Biographical Fragment • James Fitzmaurice-Kelly

... half-irritated look, such as a man gets when he has been dogged by some care or annoyance that makes his bed and his dinner of little use to him. He spoke almost abruptly, as if his errand were too pressing for him to trouble himself about what would be thought by Mrs. Moss of his visit and request. Good Mrs. Moss, rather nervous in the presence of this apparently haughty gentleman, was inwardly wondering whether she would be doing right or wrong to invite him again to ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot

... had come up, and after addressing us with the customary "bon jour" manifested a curiosity to know the nature of our errand. The woman explained it ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant

... eyes. "When Messieurs the Jesuits come, show them in at once. The hypocrites come on a begging errand. After I have humiliated them, I shall give them money, and they will say, 'Absolvo te.' It is simple. And they will promise to pray for the repose of my soul when I am dead. My faith, how easy it is to gain ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath

... should be more certain of its truth. Older than Andrew, he had been a great friend of his father, and likewise of some of Mrs. Falconer's own family. Therefore he was received with a kindly welcome. But there was a cloud on his brow which in a moment revealed that his errand was not a ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald

... of his descendant, Francis. What had made a proud, exclusive autocrat of Jerome Thaine, in Virginia Thaine developed into a pride of conquest for the good of others. It was this pride and the Thaine will to do as she pleased in defiance of the prairie perils that sent her now on this errand of mercy for a neighbor in need. And she took little measure of the reality of the journey. But she was prudent enough to stop at the Sunflower Inn and make ready for it. She slipped on a warm jacket under ...
— Winning the Wilderness • Margaret Hill McCarter

... with the hurt of what he felt her unkindness he could not, and after a certain time he feigned an errand into their room, where she had shut herself from him, and found her lying down. "Are you sick?" he ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells

... expedition was bundled, bag and baggage, into the baidara, for the position of the Thetis was now not devoid of danger. Amidst hearty cheers from those on board, we pushed off with some misgivings, while the cutter slowly veered away northward on her errand of mercy. I shall never forget that short, but extremely unpleasant journey. At times it seemed as though our frail craft must be overwhelmed and swamped, for it was now blowing a gale. Every moment huge cakes of ice around us were dashed against each other, and ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt

... Chadwick, down to Keene, stopped him as he passed, and told him to tell Mrs. Bassett her mother was failin' fast, and she'd better come to-day. He knew no more, and having delivered his errand he rode away, saying it looked like snow and he must be jogging, or he ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott

... I repeat what I said to him, I must explain by what reasoning I had arrived at the conclusion I have just mentioned. That Ruth Oliver was the visitor in Mr. Van Burnam's office there was but little reason to doubt; that her errand was one in connection with the rings was equally plain. What else would have driven her from her bed when she was hardly able to stand, and sent her in a state of fever, if not delirium, ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green

... and the five circuits which you made around the Lodge, allude to the five points of fellowship, and are intended to recall them vividly to your mind. To go upon a brother's errand or to his relief, even barefoot and upon flinty ground; to remember him in your supplications to the Deity; to clasp him to your heart, and protect him against malice and evil-speaking; to uphold him when about ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... heavy evening when they again sallied forth on their awkward errand. Mr. Winkle was muffled up in a huge cloak to escape observation, and Mr. Snodgrass bore under his the instruments ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens

... along on the stone wall, hurrying somewhere on an important errand, but changing his course every moment. He runs on the top of the wall, then along its side, then into it and through it and out on the other side, pausing every few seconds and looking and listening, careful ...
— The Wit of a Duck and Other Papers • John Burroughs

... Anthony George Finch has succeeded Bill Jenkins as errand-boy at the butter-shop in Great Wild-street. This change had long been ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... Peace's errand was soon done, and she was back at the little church in a surprisingly short time, but no Cherry was in sight anywhere; so she sat down on the steps to await her coming. It was snowing quite hard now, and the wind grew cold as ...
— At the Little Brown House • Ruth Alberta Brown

... Harry could see horsemen following at a gallop half a mile or so down the road. It looked like trouble, for at that hour men were not likely to be abroad in the saddle and riding fast on any usual errand. Our friends hurried their team and got to Brimstead's door ahead of the horsemen. A grove of trees screened the wagon from the view of the latter for a moment. Henry Brimstead stood in the ...
— A Man for the Ages - A Story of the Builders of Democracy • Irving Bacheller

... the blessings of Allah and Mohammed his Prophet upon each other, and Nevill then explained the errand which had brought him and his ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... You forced me into visiting him last year, and promised, if I went to see him, he should marry one of my daughters. But it ended in nothing, and I will not be sent on a fool's errand again." ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... gone, on what he was certain would prove a futile errand, and he turned heavily back into ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... king, as he stepped ashore. "Yes, my lord, as a brother," said the count. The king embraced him and went on; "I quite see, brother, that you are a gentleman and of the house of France." "How so, my lord?" "When I sent my ambassadors lately [in 1464] to Lille on an errand to my uncle, your father and yourself, and when my chancellor, that fool of a Morvilliers, made you such a fine speech, you sent me word by the Archbishop of Narbonne that I should repent me of the words spoken to you by that Morvilliers, and that before a year ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... secretary knows nothing more of his errand or the contents of either letter. He can, therefore, give you no further information. If you do not call for the second letter, I will consider you do not care to pursue the subject further, which will lead me to notify ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson

... undisciplined, but until now she had not sharply surveyed her weaknesses. Since the coming of her aunt she had been involved in a perfect network of little blunders; she had gone out of the room without shutting the door, had started into the village on an errand, and then, when she was there, had forgotten what it was; there had been holes in her stockings and rents in her blouses. After Ellen's departure she had endeavoured to help in the kitchen, but had made so many mistakes that ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole

... a lazy child, about to be sent out upon an errand, protests that it does not know where the person to whom the message is to be sent lives, and consequently cannot do the errand, the mother remarks threateningly, "I'll show where Abraham ground the mustard," i.e. "I give you a good thrashing, till the tears ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain

... do,' responded her father. 'Of what use to me can this man be? The other one, indeed, is of tenfold value. There is no slave in Rome like unto him for cleaning armor or sharpening a weapon, while to run of an errand or manage any piece of business in which brains must bear their part, I will trust him against the world. But as for this man here, with his weak limbs and his simple face—do you know that I did but set him to polish the rim of a ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... day had she a chance to let out, through music, any of her surcharged devotionalism. Mother kept piling on her one errand after another. Mother was in an unwonted flurry; for the next day was the one she and Aunt Nettie were going to Junction City and there were, as she put it, "a hundred and one things ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin

... field where its line was enfiladed by the enemy's fire, and was repulsed; then four companies of the Eighth, as skirmishers, were sent against the same work, with no better success, and after this bitter experience, four companies of the Seventh were sent to their destruction on an errand equally hopeless. Had the brigade been sent together, instead of its three regiments in detail, the rebel line would have been carried and the road to Richmond opened to us. This is no conjecture. The testimony of a rebel staff-officer on duty at Fort Gilmer, and that of our own ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson

... body, with sparse hair and hay-colored, ragged mustache. His face was florid, his pale eyes protruded. He was a wise-looking man, excellently well suited in appearance for the office which he filled. We explained to him our errand. Gradually, as the sense of his own new importance dawned upon him, he began to swell, apparently until he assumed a bulk thrice that which he formerly possessed. His spine straightened rigidly; a solemn light came into his eye; a cough that fairly choked ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough

... of friend in need. She knew nothing about my relationship to the woman in a state of sin (as you call it), and actually deputed me to warn your cousin of the risk he was running by his intimacy with her. Whilst I was away running this queer errand for her, she found out that the woman was my sister, and of course rushed to the conclusion that she had inflicted the deepest pain on me. Her penitence was the beginning of the sentimental side of our acquaintance. Had you recognized that she was a woman ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw

... for the doctor immediately," he said, and summoning a servant dispatched him at once upon the errand. ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley

... very dingy and old, and the men in blouses who pushed their clods about on this or that errand upon the troopship, were old, too, and had sad, worn faces. Only ...
— Tom Slade on a Transport • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... which she ran over and over; and there we shall leave her, executing the fool's errand upon which Lanigan had sent her. "Now," said he, going in, "the coast's clear; I have sent that impertinent jade out to the garden, and as the back gate is open—the gardener's men are wheeling out the rubbish—and they are now at dinner—I say, as the back gate is ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... others which one was born to utter he may forget to mention, as presuming it to be no news. Indeed, if a man of fertile soul be misled into the luckless search after peculiar and surprising thoughts, there are many chances that be will be betrayed into this oversight of his proper errand. As Sir Martin Frobisher, according to Fuller, brought home from America a cargo of precious stones which after examination were thrown out to mend roads with, so he leaves untouched his divine knowledges, and comes sailing ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various

... ride to the station directly, to meet uncle and your father, and I would like to have you go quietly into the nursery and sit there until Maggie returns from an errand; it will ...
— The King's Daughter and Other Stories for Girls • Various

... ever is confiscated on an illegal errand," Skinner mourned, "and Mike Murphy has nothing more tangible than a dime-novel tale of coercion as an excuse for being in that latitude and longitude—well, we'll never get our bully ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne

... that they say and do are very funny. After one of our village boys had been to the new boarding-school two or three weeks, he came to our house one day of an errand. While he waited, he said to Winona (that is Miss Collins) "Do you sleep on a bed the way we do at school?" She told him that she did, and then he said: "A long time ago, when I was little and not very wise, ...
— The American Missionary — Vol. 48, No. 10, October, 1894 • Various



Words linked to "Errand" :   fool's errand, trip



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