HERALD • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Herald

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/hˈɛrəld/ Listen

noun

Herald n.

1.

(Antiq.) An officer whose business was to denounce or proclaim war, to challenge to battle, to proclaim peace, and to bear messages from the commander of an army. He was invested with a sacred and inviolable character.

2.

In the Middle Ages, the officer charged with the above duties, and also with the care of genealogies, of the rights and privileges of noble families, and especially of armorial bearings. In modern times, some vestiges of this office remain, especially in England. See Heralds' College (below), and King-at-Arms.

3.

A proclaimer; one who, or that which, publishes or announces; as, the herald of another's fame.

4.

A forerunner; a a precursor; a harbinger. "It was the lark, the herald of the morn."

5.

Any messenger. "My herald is returned."

Heralds' College, in England, an ancient corporation, dependent upon the crown, instituted or perhaps recognized by Richard III. in 1483, consisting of the three Kings-at-Arms and the Chester, Lancaster, Richmond, Somerset, Windsor, and York Heralds, together with the Earl Marshal. This retains from the Middle Ages the charge of the armorial bearings of persons privileged to bear them, as well as of genealogies and kindred subjects; called also College of Arms.

verb

Herald v. t. (past & past part. heralded; pres. part. heralding) To introduce, or give tidings of, as by a herald; to proclaim; to announce; to foretell; to usher in.

See images of 'Herald'

Etymology of 'Herald'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

"Herald" Quotes from Famous Books

... at Huntingdon's feast, unaware of the Prince's presence, execrate his name, and at length he retires, in a silent fury. Robin gives to Marian a remarkable ring that he has inherited from his mother. Later a herald enters and reads a proclamation from Prince John, declaring the Earl of Huntingdon to be a felon, and commanding his banishment. Robin cannot forcibly oppose that mandate, and he therefore determines to cast in his lot with Scarlet and Friar Tuck and other "minions of the moon," and thenceforward ...

— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter

... were drawn back upon the scene beside the Scheldt, he got readily into the swing of the story. He was so much interested in the bass who sang KING HENRY that he had almost forgotten for what he was waiting so nervously, when the HERALD began in stentorian tones to summon ELSA VON BRABANT. Then he began to realize that he was rather frightened. There was a flutter of white at the back of the stage, and women began to come in: two, four, six, eight, but not the right one. It flashed ...

— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather

... was embodied in Benjamin Franklin,—in all this eighteenth century the best type and herald of the coming development of man. Franklin inherited the characteristic virtue of the Englishman and the Puritan; he started in ground which Puritan and Quaker had fertilized, and when the fire of the early zeal had cooled; he worked out the problem ...

— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam

... the texts indispensable to the spread of learning, which in turn was prerequisite to religious unity and peace on earth and ultimately to the millennium itself; for with enough of the right books, the Christian world could convert the Jews, that final step which was to herald the reign of Christ on earth. When, in the second letter, Dury refers to the "stewardship" of the librarian he is speaking literally, ...

— The Reformed Librarie-Keeper (1650) • John Dury

... gems on my apple tree This first morning of May Has fallen out of the night, to be Herald of holiday— Bright gems of green that, fallen there, Seem fixed and glowing on ...

— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 - Edited by Sir Edward Howard Marsh • Various

Copyright © 2025 e-Free Translation.com