off one's guard

Questions about off one's guard

What does off one's guard mean?

off one's guard means "not prepared or vigilant".

What is another word for off one's guard?

Close synonyms include napping, off-guard, off guard, off his guard, off her guard. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is off one's guard a common word?

off one's guard is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.