guard vs ward what difference

what is difference between guard and ward

English

Alternative forms

• gard, garde, guarde (obsolete)

Etymology

For verb: From early Middle French or late Old French (circa 14th cent) guarder (“to keep, ward, guard, save, preserve, etc.”), from Frankish *wardōn, from Proto-Germanic *wardāną (“to guard, protect”). Cognate with Old English weardian (whence English to ward). Compare French garder. See also English regard.

For noun: From Middle English garde, from early Middle French or late Old French guarde (“a guardian, warden, keeper”) (whence modern French garde), from the verb guarder. Doublet of garda, which is from Irish.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ɡɑːd/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ɡɑɹd/
• Rhymes: -ɑː(ɹ)d

Noun

guard (plural guards)

1. A person who, or thing that, protects or watches over something.

2. (Ireland) A garda; a police officer.
   • 2016, Anastasia Dukova, A History of the Dublin Metropolitan Police and its Colonial Legacy, Springer (→ISBN), page 139

     The Garda Regulations 1924 required a candidate for appointment as a guard to be able to produce satisfactory references as to his character

3. (military) A squad responsible for protecting something.

4. The part of a sword that protects the wielder’s hand.
5. A part of a machine which blocks access to dangerous parts.

6. A watchchain.
7. (Australia) A panel of a car that encloses the wheel area, especially the front wheels.
8. (uncountable) A state of caution; posture of defence.
9. Something worn to protect part of the body, e.g. the shins in cricket.
10. (basketball) A relatively short player, playing farther from the basket than a forward or center.
11. (cricket) The position on the popping crease where a batsman makes a mark to align himself with the wicket; see take guard.
12. (American football) Either of two offensive positions between the center and each of the offensive tackles, whose main responsibilities are to protect the quarterback, and open up “holes” through which offensive players can run.
13. (sports) A player playing a position named guard.
14. (rail transport) An employee, normally travelling in the last vehicle of a train, responsible for the safety of the train.
    • 1938, Xavier Herbert, Capricornia, New York: D. Appleton-Century, 1943, Chapter IX, p. 141, [4]

      When an engineer wished to stop a swiftly moving train he had first to whistle to the guard requesting him to apply the hand-brake of the van, and then apply the hand-brake of the engine. Guards did not always hear.

15. (computing, programming) A Boolean expression that must evaluate to true for a branch of program execution to continue.

Synonyms

• (the part of a sword that protects the wielder’s hand): quillon
• (part of machine blocking dangerous parts): protection
• (panel of a car enclosing a wheel): fender

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

guard (third-person singular simple present guards, present participle guarding, simple past and past participle guarded)

1. To protect from danger; to secure against surprise, attack, or injury; to keep in safety; to defend.
2. To keep watch over, in order to prevent escape or restrain from acts of violence, or the like.

   Guard the prisoner.

3. To watch by way of caution or defense; to be caution; to be in a state or position of defense or safety.

   Careful people guard against mistakes.

4. To protect the edge of, especially with an ornamental border; hence, to face or ornament with lists, laces, etc.
5. To fasten by binding; to gird.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Ben Jonson to this entry?)

Derived terms

• guard one’s tongue

Translations

Further reading

• guard in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• guard in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• guard at OneLook Dictionary Search

Anagrams

• Dagur, Darug, Dugar, Durga, draug, durag

English

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /wɔːd/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /wɔɹd/
• Rhymes: -ɔː(r)d

Etymology 1

From Middle English ward, from Old English weard (“keeper, watchman, guard, guardian, protector; lord, king; possessor”), from Proto-Germanic *warduz (“guard, keeper”), from Proto-Indo-European *wer- (“to heed, defend”). Cognate with German Wart.

Noun

ward (plural wards)

1. (archaic or obsolete) A warden; a guard; a guardian or watchman.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, III.xi:

     no gate they found, them to withhold, / Nor ward to wait at morne and euening late […].

Etymology 2

From Middle English ward, warde, from Old English weard (“watching, ward, protection, guardianship; advance post; waiting for, lurking, ambuscade”), from Proto-Germanic *wardō (“protection, attention, keeping”), an extension of the stem *wara- (“attentive”) (English wary, beware), from Proto-Indo-European *wer- (“to cover”). Cognate with German Warte (“watchtower”), warten (“wait for”); English guard is a parallel form which came via Old French.

Noun

ward (countable and uncountable, plural wards)

1. Protection, defence.
   1. (obsolete) A guard or watchman; now replaced by warden.
   2. The action of a watchman; monitoring, surveillance (usually in phrases keep ward etc.).
      • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, II.vii:

        Before the dore sat selfe-consuming Care, / Day and night keeping wary watch and ward, / For feare least Force or Fraud should vnaware / Breake in […]

   3. Guardianship, especially of a child or prisoner.
      • 1485, Sir Thomas Malory, Le Morte d’Arthur, Book V:

        So forth the presoners were brought before Arthure, and he commaunded hem into kepyng of the conestabyls warde, surely to be kepte as noble presoners.

      • It is also inconvenient, in Ireland, that the wards and marriages of gentlemen’s children should be in the disposal of any of those lords.

   4. An enchantment or spell placed over a designated area or social unit, that prevents any tresspasser from entering; approaching; or even being able to locate said protected premises/demographic.
   5. (historical, Scots law) Land tenure through military service.
   6. (fencing) A guarding or defensive motion or position.
2. A protected place, and by extension, a type of subdivision.
   1. An area of a castle, corresponding to a circuit of the walls.
      • 1942, Rebecca West, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, Canongate 2006, page 149:

        Diocletian […] must certainly have derived some consolation from the grandeur of Aspalaton, the great arcaded wall it turned to the Adriatic, its four separate wards, each town size, and its seventeen watch-towers […].

      • 2000, George RR Martin, A Storm of Swords, Bantam 2011, p. 78:

        With the castle so crowded, the outer ward had been given over to guests to raise their tents and pavilions, leaving only the smaller inner yards for training.

   2. A section or subdivision of a prison.
   3. An administrative division of a borough, city or council.

      • Throughout the trembling city placed a guard, / Dealing an equal share to every ward.

   4. (Britain) A division of a forest.
   5. (Mormonism) A subdivision of the LDS Church, smaller than and part of a stake, but larger than a branch.
   6. A part of a hospital, with beds, where patients reside.
3. A person under guardianship.
   1. A minor looked after by a guardian.
   2. (obsolete) An underage orphan.
4. An object used for guarding.
   1. The ridges on the inside of a lock, or the incisions on a key.
      • , II.1:

        A man must thorowly sound himselfe, and dive into his heart, and there see by what wards or springs the motions stirre.

      • 1852-1854, Charles Tomlinson, Cyclopaedia of Useful Arts and Manufactures

        The lock is made […] more secure by attaching wards to the front, as well as to the back, plate of the lock, in which case the key must be furnished with corresponding notches.

      • 1893, Arthur Conan Doyle, ‘The Resident Patient’, Norton 2005, page 628:

        With the help of a wire, however, they forced round the key. Even without the lens you will perceive, by the scratches on this ward, where the pressure was applied.

Derived terms

• wardroom
• (part of a hospital where patients reside): convalescent ward, critical ward

Translations

Etymology 3

From Middle English warden, from Old English weardian (“to watch, guard, keep, protect, preserve; hold, possess, occupy, inhabit; rule, govern”), from Proto-West Germanic *wardēn, from Proto-Germanic *wardōną, *wardāną (“to guard”), from Proto-Indo-European *wer- (“to heed, defend”).

Verb

ward (third-person singular simple present wards, present participle warding, simple past and past participle warded)

1. (transitive) To keep in safety, to watch over, to guard.
2. (transitive) To defend, to protect.
   • 1603, John Florio, translating Michel de Montaigne, Essays, II.3:

     they went to seeke their owne death, and rushed amidst the thickest of their enemies, with an intention, rather to strike, than to ward themselves.

3. (transitive) To fend off, to repel, to turn aside, as anything mischievous that approaches; — usually followed by off.
   • 1609, Samuel Daniel, The Civile Wares

     Now wards a felling blow, now strikes again.

   • 1717, Joseph Addison, Metamorphoses

     The pointed javelin warded off his rage.

   • It instructs the scholar in the various methods of warding off the force of objections.

4. (intransitive) To be vigilant; to keep guard.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, II.viii:

     They for vs fight, they watch and dewly ward, / And their bright Squadrons round about vs plant […].

5. (intransitive) To act on the defensive with a weapon.

Synonyms

• (to fend off): ward off

Derived terms

• beward

Translations

See also

• Ward on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Ward in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)

Anagrams

• draw

German

Alternative forms

• wurde (modern German)

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /vaʁt/

Verb

ward

1. (archaic) first/third-person singular indicative past of werden
   • Genesis 1:3

Usage notes

Occasionally found in deliberately archaicizing, poetic or biblical contexts.

Further reading

• “ward” in Duden online

Maltese

Etymology

From Arabic وَرْد‎ (ward).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /wart/

Noun

ward m (collective, singulative warda, plural urad or uradi or urud or uradijiet, paucal wardiet)

1. rose, roses

Derived terms

Manx

Etymology

Borrowed from English ward.

Noun

ward m (genitive singular ward, plural wardyn)

1. ward (in a hospital)

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