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say it: gahrd
guard is a noun and verb meaning "a person who keeps watch over something or someone". It carries 14 recorded senses.
a person who keeps watch over something or someone
the person who plays that position on a football team
“the left guard was injured on the play”
a device designed to prevent injury or accidents
the person who plays the position of guard on a basketball team
a military unit serving to protect some place or person
a precautionary measure warding off impending danger or damage or injury etc.
“he put an ice pack on the injury as a precaution”
“an insurance policy is a good safeguard”
“we let our guard down”
the duty of serving as a sentry
“he was on guard that night”
(American football) a position on the line of scrimmage
“guards must be good blockers”
a position on a basketball team
to keep watch over
“there would be men guarding the horses”
take precautions in order to avoid some unwanted consequence
“guard against becoming too friendly with the staff”
“guard against infection”
Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.
Definitions, synonyms and semantic relations for guard come from Princeton University’s WordNet. The pronunciation comes from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. Commonness is measured against a corpus of everyday English. Full sources and licences.