Now, fetching the ultimate origin of the word may be a fool’s errand–or, as an older expression goes, a sleeveless one. In Old English, errand took the form ǽrende, which has cousins across the Germanic languages. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) attests the word all the way back in the 9th century, where it signified a “message repeated to a third party,” especially a petition or a prayer. Originally, however, errand enjoyed a bit more status. A couple braves parking lots for Sunday errands. As far as the written record is concerned, this sense of the word begins emerging in the middle of the 17th century. ErrandĪ boss sends out an errand boy for soy lattes.

This made me wonder, an errand involves some kind of wandering about, does it not? And for that matter, something racy, something “risqué” and “spirited,” surely suggests the action and speed of running, no? Etymologies are a curious and illogical business. Last week, we ran the etymological race. We saw the word was connected to error, which goes back to the Latin verb “to wander,” among other meanings.

Another word for running errands