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Ward   /wɔrd/   Listen
noun
Ward  n.  
1.
The act of guarding; watch; guard; guardianship; specifically, a guarding during the day. See the Note under Watch, n., 1. "Still, when she slept, he kept both watch and ward."
2.
One who, or that which, guards; garrison; defender; protector; means of guarding; defense; protection. "For the best ward of mine honor." "The assieged castle's ward Their steadfast stands did mightily maintain." "For want of other ward, He lifted up his hand, his front to guard."
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." "I must attend his majesty's command, to whom I am now in ward." "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.
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."
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."
(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."
(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. "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."
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.)


verb
Ward  v. t.  (past & past part. warded; pres. part. warding)  
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."
2.
To defend; to protect. "Tell him it was a hand that warded him From thousand dangers."
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." "The pointed javelin warded off his rage." "It instructs the scholar in the various methods of warding off the force of objections."


Ward  v. 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."


suffix
-wards, -ward  suff.  Suffixes denoting course or direction to; motion or tendency toward; as in backward, or backwards; toward, or towards, etc.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Ward" Quotes from Famous Books



... danger. These lines are crossed and knitted in a manner all unlike the sea-weed threads that streamed so long and straight and loose in the tide-way. A secret foreboding of some unknown doom arises: the alarmed captive, having now no further room to retire, darts wildly sea-ward, and is caught in the inevitable meshes of the encircling net. After a moment of violent but feeble struggle, he is laid still and dumb ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... had convened, the exercises were commenced by the Rev. S.R. Ward, who addressed the throne of grace, after which, Mr. Frederick Douglass delivered an oration, in a style of eloquence which only Mr. Douglass himself can equal, followed by a song from the Geneva choir, and music by Barring's band. Rev. H.H. Garnet, editor of "The National Watchman," ...
— Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman • Austin Steward
... substituted for the year 1807, as the time when the trade should be abolished. This amendment produced a long debate, which was carried on by Sir C. Pole, Messrs. Fuller, Hiley Addington, Rose, Gascoyne, and Bathurst, on one side; and by Mr. Ward, Sir P. Francis; General Vyse, Sir T. Turton, Mr. Whitbread, Lord Henry Petty, Messrs. Canning, Stanhope, Perceval, and Wilberforce on the other. At length, on a division, there appeared to be one ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... Domitio Calvino besiegyng a toune, used for a custome to compasse aboute every daie, with a good parte of his menne, the wall of the same: whereby the Tounes menne, belevyng that he did it for exercise, slacked the Ward: whereof Domicius beyng ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... on the horns of a dilemma, and is there no alternative to hereditary government tempered by elections, or government by the ward politician and the polling booth? Cannot we have that sense and tradition of equal opportunity for all who are born into this world, that generous and complete acknowledgment of the principle of promotion ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells


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