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Webster 1913 Edition

Ward

Ward

,
Noun.
[AS.
weard
, fem., guard,
weard
, masc., keeper, guard; akin to OS.
ward
a watcher, warden, G.
wart
, OHG.
wart
, Icel.
vörðr
a warden, a watch, Goth.
-wards
in daúra
wards
a doorkeeper, and E.
wary
; cf. OF.
warde
guard, from the German. See
Ware
,
Adj.
,
Wary
, and cf.
Guard
,
Wraith
.]
1.
The act of guarding; watch; guard; guardianship; specifically, a guarding during the day. See the Note under
Watch
,
Noun.
, 1.
Still, when she slept, he kept both watch and
ward
.
Spenser.
2.
One who, or that which, guards; garrison; defender; protector; means of guarding; defense; protection.
For the best
ward
of mine honor.
Shakespeare
The assieged castle’s
ward

Their steadfast stands did mightily maintain.
Spenser.
For want of other
ward
,
He lifted up his hand, his front to guard.
Dryden.
3.
The state of being under guard or guardianship; confinement under guard; the condition of a child under a guardian; custody.
And he put them in
ward
in the house of the captain of the guard.
Gen. xl. 3.
I must attend his majesty's command, to whom I am now in
ward
.
Shakespeare
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.
Spenser.
4.
A guarding or defensive motion or position, as in fencing; guard.
“Thou knowest my old ward; here I lay, and thus I bore my point.”
Shak.
5.
One who, or that which, is guarded.
Specifically: –
(a)
A minor or person under the care of a guardian;
as, a
ward
in chancery
.
“You know our father's ward, the fair Monimia.”
Otway.
(b)
A division of a county.
[Eng. & Scot.]
(c)
A division, district, or quarter of a town or city.
Throughout the trembling city placed a guard,
Dealing an equal share to every
ward
.
Dryden.
(d)
A division of a forest.
[Eng.]
(e)
A division of a hospital;
as, a fever
ward
.
6.
(a)
A projecting ridge of metal in the interior of a lock, to prevent the use of any key which has not a corresponding notch for passing it.
(b)
A notch or slit in a key corresponding to a ridge in the lock which it fits; a ward notch.
Knight.
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.
Tomlinson.
Ward penny
(O. Eng. Law)
,
money paid to the sheriff or castellan for watching and warding a castle.
–
Ward staff
,
a constable's or watchman's staff.
[Obs.]

Ward

,
Verb.
T.
[
imp. & p. p.
Warded
;
p. pr. & vb. n.
Warding
.]
[OE.
wardien
, AS.
weardian
to keep, protect; akin to OS.
ward[GREEK]n
to watch, take care, OFries.
wardia
, OHG.
wart[GREEK]n
, G.
warten
to wait, wait on, attend to, Icel.
var[GREEK]a
to guarantee defend, Sw.
vårda
to guard, to watch; cf. OF.
warder
, of German origin. See
Ward
,
Noun.
, and cf.
Award
,
Guard
,
Reward
.]
1.
To keep in safety; to watch; to guard; formerly, in a specific sense, to guard during the day time.
Whose gates he found fast shut, no living wight
To
ward
the same.
Spenser.
2.
To defend; to protect.
Tell him it was a hand that
warded
him
From thousand dangers.
Shakespeare
3.
To defend by walls, fortifications, etc.
[Obs.]
4.
To fend off; to repel; to turn aside, as anything mischievous that approaches; – usually followed by off.
Now
wards
a felling blow, now strikes again.
Daniel.
The pointed javelin
warded
off his rage.
Addison.
It instructs the scholar in the various methods of
warding
off the force of objections.
I. Watts.

Ward

,
Verb.
I.
1.
To be vigilant; to keep guard.
2.
To act on the defensive with a weapon.
She redoubling her blows drove the stranger to no other shift than to
ward
and go back.
Sir P. Sidney.

Webster 1828 Edition

Ward

WARD

, in composition, as in toward, homeward, is the Saxon weard, from the root of L.

WARD

,
Verb.
T.
1.
To guard; to deep in safety; to watch.
Whose gates he found fast shut, he living wight to ward the same--
[In this sense, ward is obsolete, as we have adopted the French of the same word, to guard. We now never apply ward to the thing to be defended, but always to the thing against which it is to be defended. We ward off a blow or dagger, and we guard a person or place.]
2.
To defend; to protect.
Tell him it was a hand that warded him from thousand dangers. [Obs. See the remark, supra.]
3.
To fend off; to repel; to turn aside any thing mischievous that approaches.
Now wards a falling blow, now strikes again.
The pointed javlin warded off his rage.
It instructs the scholar in the various methods of warding off the force of objections.
[This is the present use of ward. To ward off is now the more general expression, nor can I, with Johnson, think it less elegant.]

WARD

,
Verb.
I.
1.
To be vigilant; to keep guard.
2.
To act on the defensive with a weapon.
She drove the stranger to no other shift, than to ward and go back.
And on their warding arms light bucklers bear.

WARD

,
Noun.
1.
Watch; act of guarding.
Still when she slept, he kept both watch and ward.
2.
Garrison; troops to defend a fort; as small wards left in forts. [Not in use.]
3.
Guard made by a weapon in fencing.
For want of other ward, he lifted up his hand his front to guard.
4.
A fortress; a strong hold.
5.
One whose business is to guard, watch and defend; as a fire-ward.
6.
A certain district, division or quarter of a town or city, committed to an alderman. There are twenty six wards in London.
7.
Custody; confinement under guard. Pharaoh put his butler and baker in ward. Genesis 40.
8.
A minor or person under the care of a guardian. See Blackstones chapter on the rights and duties of guardian and ward.
9.
The state of a child under a guardian.
I must attend his majestys commands, to whom I am now in ward.
10.
Guardianship; right over orphans.
It is convenient in Ireland, that the wards and marriages of gentlemens children should be in the disposal of any of those lords.
11.
The division of a forest.
12.
The division of a hospital.
13.
A part of a lock which corresponds to its proper key.

Definition 2024

Ward

Ward

See also: ward, -wards, and -ward

English

Proper noun

Ward

  1. An English occupational surname​ for a guard or watchman.

Anagrams

Dutch

Pronunciation

Etymology

Germanic, cognate with waard, garde etc.

Proper noun

Ward ?

  1. A given name, either as a diminutive of Edward or officially given equivalent to English Ed(dy), Ned, Ted

Related terms

ward

ward

See also: Ward, -ward, and -wards

English

Noun

ward ‎(plural wards)

  1. (archaic or obsolete) 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 Germanic 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 ‎(plural wards)

  1. Protection, defence.
    1. (obsolete) A guard or watchman; now replaced by warden.
      • William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
        the best ward of mine honour
      • Edmund Spenser (c.1552–1599)
        The assieged castle's ward / Their steadfast stands did mightily maintain.
      • John Dryden (1631-1700)
        For want of other ward, / He lifted up his hand, his front to guard.
    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.
      • William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
        I must attend his majesty's command, to whom I am now in ward.
      • Edmund Spenser (c.1552–1599)
        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 a social unit, that prevents any tresspasser from entering, approaching and/or even from being able to locate said-protected premises
    5. (historical, Scots law) Land tenure through military service.
    6. (fencing) A guarding or defensive motion or position.
      • William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
        Thou knowest my old ward; here I lay, and thus I bore my point.
  2. A protected place.
    1. (archaic) 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.
      On our last visit to Tokyo, we went to Chiyoda ward and visited the Emperor's palace.‎
      • John Dryden (1631-1700)
        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 where patients reside.
      • 2011 December 16, Denis Campbell, “Hospital staff 'lack skills to cope with dementia patients'”, in Guardian:
        Many hospitals have not taken simple steps to lessen the distress and confusion which dementia sufferers' often feel on being somewhere so unfamiliar – such as making signs large and easy to read, using colour schemes to help patients find their way around unfamiliar wards and not putting family mementoes such as photographs nearby.
  3. A person under guardianship.
    1. A minor looked after by a guardian.
      After the trial, little Robert was declared a ward of the state.‎
      • 1918, W. B. Maxwell, chapter 22, in The Mirror and the Lamp:
        Not unnaturally, “Auntie” took this communication in bad part. Thus outraged, she showed herself to be a bold as well as a furious virago. Next day she found her way to their lodgings and tried to recover her ward by the hair of the head.
    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.
      • 1603, John Florio, translating Michel de Montaigne, Essayes, London: Edward Blount, OCLC 946730821, II.1:
        A man must thorowly sound himselfe, and dive into his heart, and there see by what wards or springs the motions stirre.
      • Tomlinson
        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
  • (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-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.
    • Spenser
      Whose gates he found fast shut, no living wight / To ward the same.
  2. (transitive) To defend, to protect.
    • Shakespeare
      Tell him it was a hand that warded him / From a thousand dangers.
    • 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.
    • Daniel
      Now wards a felling blow, now strikes again.
    • Addison
      The pointed javelin warded off his rage.
    • I. Watts
      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
Translations

Anagrams

See also

German

Alternative forms

Verb

ward

  1. (archaic) First-person singular indicative past form of werden.
  2. (archaic) Third-person singular indicative past form of werden.
    Und Gott sprach: »Es werde Licht!« Und es ward Licht.
    And God said: "Let there be light." And there was light.

Maltese

Noun

ward f pl

  1. Collective plural of warda

Manx

Etymology

Borrowing from English ward.

Noun

ward m ‎(genitive singular ward, plural wardyn)

  1. ward (in a hospital)

Etymology

Germanic, cognate with a/to ward, warden, guard etc.

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