Skip to main content
English Language Learners

You are not logged in. Your edit will be placed in a queue until it is peer reviewed.

We welcome edits that make the post easier to understand and more valuable for readers. Because community members review edits, please try to make the post substantially better than how you found it, for example, by fixing grammar or adding additional resources and hyperlinks.

8
  • @TobySpeight - aren't errands something you do for someone else?
    – Michael Harvey
    Commented Mar 20, 2023 at 12:50
  • I hear it loosely used for any small necessary job (i.e. the same as chore), but yes, I think the usual definition is that it's for someone else. Shopping for someone else is even less fun than shopping for oneself, IMHO!
    – Toby Speight
    Commented Mar 20, 2023 at 13:10
  • 1
    IME: a "chore" is something done at home, usually something that happens regularly (washing the dishes, dusting, etc.; on a farm, they could include daily work like milking the cows). An "errand" is something done outside the home, and the term doesn't carry the "regular" connotation so much (eg., going to the post office to pick up a package would be an errand, even if it only happens a couple of times a year).
    – minnmass
    Commented Mar 20, 2023 at 19:55
  • @minnmass - Not all dictionaries define a chore as only something done at home. There are household chores and other types.
    – Michael Harvey
    Commented Mar 20, 2023 at 20:19
  • 1
    @minnmass the dictionaries I go to first have housework (a common synonym for "chores" here in the UK) first, and the boring routine stuff second. But a close second, I'd say. Certainly something like "the systems in work make ordering supplies into a chore" seems perfectly reasonable (as well as a whinge about my afternoon!)
    – Chris H
    Commented Mar 21, 2023 at 16:23