ward: Meaning and Definition of

ward

1. a division or district of a city or town, as for administrative or political purposes.
2. one of the districts into which certain English and Scottish boroughs are divided.
3. a division, floor, or room of a hospital for a particular class or group of patients: a convalescent ward; a critical ward.
4. any of the separate divisions of a prison.
5. a political subdivision of a parish in Louisiana.
6. one of the subdivisions of a stake, presided over by a bishop.
7. an open space within or between the walls of a castle or fortified place: the castle's lower ward.
1. a person, esp. a minor, who has been legally placed under the care of a guardian or a court.
2. the state of being under the care or control of a legal guardian.
3. guardianship over a minor or some other person legally incapable of managing his or her own affairs.
9. the state of being under restraining guard or in custody.
10. a person who is under the protection or control of another.
11. a movement or posture of defense, as in fencing.
12. a curved ridge of metal inside a lock, forming an obstacle to the passage of a key that does not have a corresponding notch.
13. the notch or slot in the bit of a key into which such a ridge fits.
14. the act of keeping guard or protective watch: watch and ward.
15. a company of guards or a garrison.

1. to avert, repel, or turn aside (danger, harm, an attack, an assailant, etc.) (usually fol. by off): to ward off a blow; to ward off evil.
2. to place in a ward, as of a hospital or prison.
3. to protect; guard.

Ward

1. 1843–1913, U.S. merchant and mail-order retailer.
2. 1727–1800, American general in the American Revolution.
3. (Charles Farrar Browne), 1834–67, U.S. humorist.
4. (Baroness Jackson of Lodsworth), 1914–81, English economist and author.
5. (Mary Augusta Arnold), 1851–1920, English novelist, born in Tasmania.
6. 1856–1930, New Zealand statesman, born in Australia: Prime Minister 1906–12, 1928–30.
7. 1841–1913, U.S. sociologist.
8. (“Theodore de la Guard”), 1578?–1652, English clergyman, lawyer, and author in America.
9. a male given name.

-ward

1. a native English suffix denoting spatial or temporal direction, as specified by the initial element: toward; seaward; afterward; backward.