Warden

How to spell warden

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce warden

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does warden mean?

1. nounAn official responsible for supervising a place, enforcing rules, or guarding people or property.
2. nounThe head of certain colleges, hostels, or institutions, especially in British universities.

Warden in a sentence

• The prison warden signed off on every visitor request.

• The warden of the college hosted the annual dinner for graduates.

• A traffic warden issued tickets along the high street all morning.

• The new warden moved into the lodge beside the chapel.

Where does warden come from?

Language of origin: French

Warden came into English from Old North French wardein, a regional form of the Old French guardein meaning 'guardian' or 'keeper'. That word grew from a Germanic root, wardon, meaning 'to watch over' or 'to guard', the same ancient source that gives us the plain English word 'ward'. Because the northern French dialect kept a 'w' where central French shifted to a 'g', English ended up with both 'warden' and its near twin 'guardian' from essentially the same root, a neat example of a sound doublet. The word arrived after the Norman Conquest in the 1200s and originally described any official charged with keeping or supervising something, whether a castle, a forest, or a stretch of border. The everyday spelling trap is the unstressed ending: it is '-en', not '-on' or '-an', even though the final syllable sounds like a vague schwa.

How the word is built

• ward (to guard, watch)
• -en (agent/noun suffix)