LORD, WARD, WARDEN AND GUARDIAN

MARTA CASTILLO

LORD, WARD, WARDEN AND GUARDIAN

All these words, whole or just a part of them, ultimately derive from the Indo-European (IE) root *WER- which meant “to perceive, watch out for” and *WEAR- which “The act of guarding or protecting”, according to the Indo-European Roots Index of The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000. www.bartleby.com/61/. [12/11/08].

LORD

The form of lord in OE was hlāfweard, the result of hlāf “bread” + weard “keep, guard”, so that lord literally meant “the keeper or guardian of bread”. Weard can be traced back to the IE root *WER-, which meant “to perceive, watch out for” The lord was the male head of a household.

WARD

It comes from OE ward was wearda. war -, an extended form of *war- to watch, guard . Ward means “A watchman, guard, keeper, warden”.
Common in OE. It often applied to God, as in rodora weard, keeper of the skies. Later, chiefly as the second element in compounds, as bear-, gate-, hay-, mill-, woodward.. Weard can be traced back to the IE root *WER-, which meant “to perceive, watch out for”

GUARDIAN

This word comes from Old French g(u)arden and from English *warding-, f. wardâ WARD n. + -ing. Ward means “A watchman, guard, keeper, warden”. The assimilation of the ending to the suffix -ien, which has given the mod.F. gardien, while the appearance of the corresponding -ian in the Eng. In conclusion, guardian is ‘one to whom the care and preservation of any thing is committed’

WARDEN

It comes from the words in Old French wardein, north-eastern var. of guarden, -ene and the Middle English wardein, from Old North French, from warder, to guard, of Germanic origin. Ward means “A watchman, guard, keeper, warden”. Certainly, warden means “The chief administrative official of a prison”.