different between errand vs stint

English

Alternative forms

• arrand

Etymology

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

Pronunciation

• enPR: ?r'-?nd, IPA^(key): /????nd/
• Rhymes: -???nd

Noun

errand (plural errands)

1. A journey undertaken to accomplish some task.
   1. (literary or archaic) A mission or quest.
      • 1485, Sir Thomas Malory, Le Morte d'Arthur

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

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

        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.

   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.)

2. 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. Auban's was a presence not to be concealed.

3. An oral message trusted to a person for delivery.
   • 1633, John Donne, Elegy VII

     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.

Derived terms

• fool's errand
• lost errand

Translations

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.

Anagrams

• Ardern, Darren, Renard, darner

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /st?nt/
• Rhymes: -?nt

Etymology 1

From Middle English stinten, from Old English styntan (“to make blunt”) and *stintan (attested in ?stintan (“to make dull, stint, assuage”)), from Proto-Germanic *stuntijan? and Proto-Germanic *stintan? (“to make short”), probably influenced in some senses by cognate Old Norse *stynta, stytta (“to make short, shorten”).

Verb

stint (third-person singular simple present stints, present participle stinting, simple past and past participle stinted)

1. (archaic, intransitive) To stop (an action); cease, desist.
   • 1460-1500, The Towneley Plays?

     We maun have pain that never shall stint.
2. (obsolete, intransitive) To stop speaking or talking (of a subject).
   • Late 14th century, Geoffrey Chaucer, ‘The Franklin's Tale’, Canterbury Tales:

     Now wol I stynten of this Arveragus, / And speken I wole of Dorigen his wyf

3. (intransitive) To be sparing or mean.

   Synonym: skimp

4. (transitive) To restrain within certain limits; to bound; to restrict to a scant allowance.
   • 1695, John Woodward, An Essay toward a Natural History of the Earth and Terrestrial Bodies

     I shall not in the least go about to extenuate the Latitude of it: or to stint it only to the Produ?tion of Weeds, of Thorns, Thisiles, and other the less useful Kinds of Plants

   • 1729, William Law, A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life

     She stints them in their meals.

5. To assign a certain task to (a person), upon the performance of which he/she is excused from further labour for that day or period; to stent.
6. (of mares) To impregnate successfully; to get with foal.
   • 1861, John Henry Walsh, The Horse, in the Stable and the Field

     The majority of maiden mares will become stinted while at work.

Translations

Noun

stint (plural stints)

1. A period of time spent doing or being something; a spell.
2. Limit; bound; restraint; extent.

   • God has wrote upon no created thing the utmost stint of his power.

3. Quantity or task assigned; proportion allotted.
   • 1779, William Cowper, Retirement

     His old stint — three thousand pounds a year.

Translations

Etymology 2

Origin unknown.

Noun

stint (plural stints)

1. Any of several very small wading birds in the genus Calidris. Types of sandpiper, such as the dunlin or the sanderling.

Translations

Etymology 3

Noun

stint (plural stints)

1. Misspelling of stent (medical device).

Anagrams

• 'tisn't, it'sn't, tints

Westrobothnian

Alternative forms

• stunt
• stänt
• stejnt
• stönt
• stant

Etymology

Related to stött (“short,”) stynt (“to shorten.”)

Noun

stint f (definite & vocative stinta, vocative plural stinte)

1. A girl, i.e. an unmarried woman.

Declension

Synonyms

• gänt
• täus

Derived terms

• gamstint
• gjetarstint