errand-ghost
nounEtymology Revived from Old English ǣrendgāst (“spiritual messenger, angel”). By surface analysis, errand + ghost.
1
A spirit or spiritual messenger; an angel.
- Their simple directness of character may account for the well-nigh entire absence (as I said before) of all expression of religious hope. "God's Errand-Ghost," the Rider on the Pale Horse, has passed by that way, and one in the house — it may be the most loved of all, — is dead. There is no shirking of that bare truth, no attempt to soften it.1900, Eleanor Vere Boyle, Seven gardens and a palace:
- If that was really insulting, please don't be offended. I certainly don't think of you as my errand-ghost. Actually, I think of you as my friend.2008, Letters To the Ghost In My House
1 more example
- If Jesus were not God, He would have told lede to not worship Him, just as the errand-ghost in Bring to Lightings did.2012, Yahoo! Canada Answers, Is Jesus God? Did Jesus ever claim to be God?:
2
Broadly Any spirit or ghostly messenger.
- In regard of the previous question – do you also choose empty localizations deliberately? Is this to strengthen the fright for loneliness and silence, the same fright that the errand ghost of those haunted places feels?2005, C. Jürschik y P. García, Interview with Jonathan Boakes:
- Death is not unknown to him, but she has perished / And her errand ghost wanders through the night.2011, Hugo Santander, Poems on America, the world, life and death:
1 more example
- The three errand-ghosts were all extremely ugly. […] The errand-ghosts then took the two souls back to Diling, deposited them at the wind-rain bridge leading into the village, and disappeared.2021, Changzhen Li, 100 Cases of Reincarnation Among Dong People: