# harbinger

Pronunciation: US say "HAR-bin-jur" /ˈhɑɹbɪnd͡ʒəɹ/; UK say "HAH-bin-juh" /ˈhɑːbɪndʒə/

## Noun

1. Someone or something whose appearance announces that another person or thing is on its way.
   - Simple: Someone or something that shows that something else is coming soon.
   - _The first robins on the lawn are a welcome harbinger of spring._
   - _Economists read the falling orders as harbingers of a recession._

## Verb

2. To announce or come before something; to be a sign that it is on its way.
   - Simple: To show that something is coming, or to come just before it.
   - _A sudden drop in air pressure harbingered the storm._
   - _The new rules may harbinger deeper changes across the industry._

## Noun

3. A person who provides lodgings; especially, an officer of the English royal household who went ahead of the traveling court to provide and prepare lodgings. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: In the past, a person who found rooms for others, especially for a king's court on a journey.
   - _The king's harbinger reached the town a day early to secure rooms for the whole court._
   - _Innkeepers along the road dreaded the harbingers, who could claim their best rooms for the court._

## Origin

A harbinger was first someone sent ahead to arrange lodgings. Proto-West Germanic *harjabergu ("army camp, shelter") led to Old High German heribergan and then Old French herbergier ("to set up camp, to shelter"), which with the agent suffix -or became herbergeor. Middle English borrowed it as herbergeour. German Herberge, Italian albergo, and English harbor are related.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/harbinger (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).