Guard

How to spell guard

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce guard

What does guard mean?

1. nounA person or device that protects, watches over, or keeps something safe.
2. verbTo watch over something or someone in order to protect or control them.

Guard in a sentence

• noun

  The security guard checked every bag at the entrance.

• verb

  Two soldiers were assigned to guard the gate overnight.

• noun

  A metal guard covers the blade on the new lawnmower.

• verb

  Banks must carefully guard their customers' account details.

Where does guard come from?

Language of origin: French

This word came into English in the 1400s from Old French garde, a noun built on the verb garder, meaning 'to watch over, keep safe, or protect'. The French forms themselves grew from a Germanic root, reconstructed as wardon, meaning 'to watch or guard', which is also the direct ancestor of the native English word 'ward'. That shared origin produced a classic doublet: when speakers of northern French borrowed the Germanic word, their pronunciation turned the original 'w' into a hard 'g', so English ended up with both 'ward' (the older native form) and 'guard' (the French-flavoured form) from one source. The silent 'u' that trips writers up is simply a spelling habit French used to keep the 'g' hard before an 'a', and English preserved it. Once you remember that guard is cousin to 'ward' and 'warden', the unexpected 'u' becomes easier to recall.

How the word is built

• guard (from Old French garder: to watch, keep, protect)