ward

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A division of a city or town, especially an electoral district, for administrative and representative purposes.
2. n. A district of some English and Scottish counties corresponding roughly to the hundred or the wapentake.
3. n. A room in a hospital usually holding six or more patients.
4. n. A division in a hospital for the care of a particular group of patients: a maternity ward.
5. n. One of the divisions of a penal institution, such as a prison.
6. n. An open court or area of a castle or fortification enclosed by walls.
7. n. Law A minor or incompetent person placed under the care or protection of a guardian or court.
8. n. A person under the protection or care of another.
9. n. The state of being under guard; custody.
10. n. The act of guarding or protecting; guardianship.
11. n. A means of protection; a defense.
12. n. A defensive movement or attitude, especially in fencing; a guard.
13. n. The projecting ridge of a lock or keyhole that prevents the turning of a key other than the proper one.
14. n. The notch cut into a key that corresponds to such a ridge.
15. v. To guard; protect.
16. ward off To turn aside; parry: ward off an opponent's blows.
17. ward off To try to prevent; avert: took vitamins to ward off head colds.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A territorial division in the Mormon Church for purposes of ecclesiastical government. It is the administrative unit, with an executive head called a bishop.
2. n. A name, proposed by the Scottish engineer James Thorn son, for a directed quantity as expressed graphically by the length and direction of a line.
3. n. A keeper; watchman; warden.
4. To take care of; keep in safety; watch; guard; defend; protect.
5. To put under guard; imprison.
6. To fend off; repel; turn aside: commonly followed by off.
7. To keep guard; watch.
8. To act on the defensive with a weapon; guard one's self.
9. To take care: followed by a clause beginning with that.
10. n. The act of keeping guard; a position or state of watchfulness against surprise, danger, or harm; guard; watch: as, to keep watch and ward. See watch.
11. n. A body of persons whose duty it is to guard, protect, or defend; the watch; a defensive force; garrison.
12. n. Means of guarding; defense; protection; preservation.
13. n. The outworks of a castle.
14. n. A guarded or defensive motion or position in fencing, or the like; a turning aside or intercepting of a blow, thrust, etc.
15. n. The state of being under a guard; confinement under a guard, warder, or keeper; custody; confinement; jail.
16. n. Guardianship; control or care of a minor.
17. n. The state of being under the care, control, or protection of a guardian; the condition of being under guardianship.
18. n. One who or that which is guarded; specifically, a minor or person under guardianship. In feudal law, the heir of the king's tenant in capite, during his nonage.
19. n. In United States law, a minor for whom a guardian is appointed.
20. n. A division. A band or company.
21. n. A division of an army; a brigade, battalion, or regiment.
22. n. A certain division, section, or quarter of a town or city, such as is under the charge of an alderman, or as is constituted for the convenient transaction of local public business throngh committees appointed by the inhabitants, or merely for the purposes of elections.
23. n. A territorial division of some counties in Great Britain, as Lanarkshire and Renfrewshire in Scotland, and Northumberland and Cumberland in the north of England.
24. n. The division of a forest.
25. n. One of the apartments into which a hospital is divided: as, a fever ward; a convalescent ward.
26. n. A curved ridge of metal inside a lock, forming an obstacle to the passage of a key which has not a corresponding notch; also, the notch or slot in the web or bit of a key into which such a ridge fits when the key is applied. The wards of a lock are often named according to their shapes: as, L-ward; T-ward. The wards are nsually made of sheet-metal bent into a round form, and hence are sometimes termed wheels. See cut under pick, 4.
27. The suffix -ward separated as a distinct word.
28. A suffix of Anglo-Saxon origin, indicating direction or tendency to or from a point. It is affixed to many adverbs and prepositions, as fore (for-), forth, from (fro-), to, after, back, hind, in, out, hither, thither, whither, up, nether, thence, etc.; to words indicating points of the compass (east, west, etc.); to nouns indicating a goal, center, end, direction, etc., as home, way, wind, down, heaven, God, etc. With some of these it was used pleonastically, as abackward, adownward. Most of the forms have a collateral form with adverbial genitive-s, as forwards, afterwards, inwards, outwards, etc. In toward, the elements were formerly often separated, as in the Bible: to us-ward (Ps. xl. 5; 2 Pet. iii. 9); to thee-ward (1 Sam. xix. 4); to you-ward (2 Cor. xiii. 3); to the mercy seatward (Ex. xxxvii. 9); etc.

Wiktionary

1. n. Protection, defence.
2. n. A protected place.
3. n. A person under guardianship.
4. n. An object used for guarding.
5. v. transitive To keep in safety, to watch over, to guard.
6. v. transitive To defend, to protect.
7. v. transitive To fend off, to repel, to turn aside, as anything mischievous that approaches; -- usually followed by off.
8. v. intransitive To be vigilant; to keep guard.
9. v. intransitive To act on the defensive with a weapon.
10. n. obsolete A guard; a guardian or watchman.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. The act of guarding; watch; guard; guardianship; specifically, a guarding during the day. See the Note under watch, n., 1.
2. n. One who, or that which, guards; garrison; defender; protector; means of guarding; defense; protection.
3. n. The state of being under guard or guardianship; confinement under guard; the condition of a child under a guardian; custody.
4. n. A guarding or defensive motion or position, as in fencing; guard.
5. n. One who, or that which, is guarded.
6. n. A minor or person under the care of a guardian.
7. n. Eng. & Scot. A division of a county.
8. n. A division, district, or quarter of a town or city.
9. n. engraving A division of a forest.
10. n. A division of a hospital.
11. n. 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.
12. n. A notch or slit in a key corresponding to a ridge in the lock which it fits; a ward notch.
13. v. To keep in safety; to watch; to guard; formerly, in a specific sense, to guard during the day time.
14. v. To defend; to protect.
15. v. obsolete To defend by walls, fortifications, etc.
16. v. To fend off; to repel; to turn aside, as anything mischievous that approaches; -- usually followed by off.
17. v. To be vigilant; to keep guard.
18. v. To act on the defensive with a weapon.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. United States businessman who in 1872 established a successful mail-order business (1843-1913)
2. n. block forming a division of a hospital (or a suite of rooms) shared by patients who need a similar kind of care
3. n. English economist and conservationist (1914-1981)
4. v. watch over or shield from danger or harm; protect.
5. n. English writer of novels who was an active opponent of the women's suffrage movement (1851-1920)
6. n. a division of a prison (usually consisting of several cells)
7. n. a person who is under the protection or in the custody of another
8. n. a district into which a city or town is divided for the purpose of administration and elections