5. One who, or that which, is guarded. Specifically: —
(a) A minor or person under the care of a guardian; as, a ward in chancery. "You know our father's ward,
the fair Monimia." Otway.
(b) A division of a county. [Eng. & Scot.]
(c) A division, district, or quarter of a town or city.
Throughout the trembling city placed a guard,
Dealing an equal share to every ward.
Dryden. (d) A division of a forest. [Eng.]
(e) A division of a hospital; as, a fever ward.
6. (a) 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. (b) A notch or slit in a key corresponding to a ridge in the lock
which it fits; a ward notch. Knight.
The lock is made . . . more secure by attaching wards to the front, as well as to the back, plate of the
lock, in which case the key must be furnished with corresponding notches.
Tomlinson.
Ward penny (O. Eng. Law), money paid to the sheriff or castellan for watching and warding a castle.
— Ward staff, a constable's or watchman's staff. [Obs.]
Ward
(Ward) v. t. [imp. & p. p. Warded; p. pr. & vb. n. Warding.] [OE. wardien, AS. weardian
to keep, protect; akin to OS. wardn to watch, take care, OFries. wardia, OHG. wartn, G. warten to
wait, wait on, attend to, Icel. vara to guarantee defend, Sw. vårda to guard, to watch; cf. OF. warder, of
German origin. See Ward, n., and cf. Award, Guard, Reward.]
1. To keep in safety; to watch; to guard; formerly, in a specific sense, to guard during the day time.
Whose gates he found fast shut, no living wight
To ward the same.
Spenser. 2. To defend; to protect.
Tell him it was a hand that warded him
From thousand dangers.
Shak. 3. To defend by walls, fortifications, etc. [Obs.]
4. To fend off; to repel; to turn aside, as anything mischievous that approaches; — usually followed by
off.
Now wards a felling blow, now strikes again.
Daniel.
The pointed javelin warded off his rage.
Addison.
It instructs the scholar in the various methods of warding off the force of objections.
I. Watts. Ward
(Ward), v. i.
1. To be vigilant; to keep guard.
2. To act on the defensive with a weapon.
She redoubling her blows drove the stranger to no other shift than to ward and go back.
Sir P. Sidney.
