One who looks out for lodgings, etc.; a courier; hence, a forerunner, a messenger. (Anglo-Saxon, here, an army; bergan, to lodge.)
“Iʹll be myself the harbinger, and make joyful
The hearing of my wife with your approach.”
Shakespeare: Macbeth, i. 4.
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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.
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