Etymology Originally, a person sent in advance to arrange lodgings. From Middle English herberjour, herbergeour, from Old French herbergeor (French hébergeur), from herbergier (“to set up camp; to shelter; to take shelter”) + -or (suffix forming agent nouns), from Old High German heribergan, ultimately from Proto-West Germanic *harjabergu (“army camp, shelter”). Compare German Herberge, Italian albergo, Dutch herberg, English harbor. More at here, borrow.
1
A person or thing that foreshadows or foretells the coming of someone or something.
harbinger of danger; harbinger of doom; harbinger of spring
Make all our Trumpets ſpeak, giue thẽ all breath / Thoſe clamorous Harbingers of Blood, & Deathc. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene vi], page 150, column 2:
2 more examples
I knew by these harbingers who were coming.1828, Walter Savage Landor, Imaginary Conversations, Lord Brooke and Sir Philip Sidney:
It’s to realize that Moon Frye, by cheerfully surveilling her own life, and those first Real Worlders, by agreeing to the constant presence of producers and cameras, were the harbingers of today’s culture, in which self-image is shaped in the expectation of a lens and personhood collates with brand identity.2021 March 26, Alexis Soloski, “‘Kid 90’ and the Days When Even Wild TV Teens Had Privacy”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, archived from the original on 28 Mar 2021:
2
Obsolete One who provides lodgings; especially, the officer of the English royal household who formerly preceded the court when travelling, to provide and prepare lodgings.
outward decency […] is the Harbinger to provide the lodging for inward holinesse1644, Thomas Fuller, "Truth Maintained" (a sermon)
Etymology Originally, a person sent in advance to arrange lodgings. From Middle English herberjour, herbergeour, from Old French herbergeor (French hébergeur), from herbergier (“to set up camp; to shelter; to take shelter”) + -or (suffix forming agent nouns), from Old High German heribergan, ultimately from Proto-West Germanic *harjabergu (“army camp, shelter”). Compare German Herberge, Italian albergo, Dutch herberg, English harbor. More at here, borrow.
1
To announce or precede; to be a harbinger of.
It was harbingered also by the terrible comet of January, which appeared in a cadent and obscure house, denoting sickness and death; […]1841, William Harrison Ainsworth, chapter VIII, in Old Saint Paul's, published 1903, page 94: