guard
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
5 characters
Language
English
word origin
Source
Wiktionary
open dictionary
Access
Free
no sign-up needed
Detailed reference entry for the English word "guard", 5-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "guard" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "guard" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
guard is aEnglishnoun. It means: A person who, or thing that, protects or watches over something. Pronounced /ɡɑːd/. It ranks #1,900 in English word frequency. Often confused with guru and gurl.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | guard |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ɡɑːd/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #1,900 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for guard is 5 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ɡɑːd/. Corpus data places it at rank #1,900 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 18 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 7 documented wrong-spelling variants for guard, with forms such as "gaurd", "gguard", and "guadr". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "guru", "gurl", "guild", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English garde, from early Middle French or late Old French guarde (“a guardian, warden, keeper”) (whence modern French garde), from the verb guarder. Doublet of garda, which is from Irish. Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is guard, spelled G-U-A-R-D, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A person who, or thing that, protects or watches over something.
- 2A garda; a police officer.
- 3A squad responsible for protecting something.
- 4A squad responsible for protecting something.
- 5The part of a sword that protects the wielder's hand.
- 6A part of a machine which blocks access to dangerous parts.
- 7A watchchain.
- 8A panel of a car that encloses the wheel area, especially the front wheels.
- 9A state of caution; posture of defence.
- 10Something worn to protect part of the body, e.g. the shins in cricket.
- 11A relatively short player, playing farther from the basket than a forward or centre.
- 12The position on the popping crease where a batsman makes a mark to align himself with the wicket; see take guard.
- 13Either of two offensive positions between the centre and each of the offensive tackles, whose main responsibilities are to protect the quarterback, and open up "holes" through which offensive players can run.
- 14A ground grappling position in which one combatant has their back to the ground while attempting to control the other combatant using their legs.
- 15A player playing a position named guard.
- 16An employee, normally travelling in the last vehicle of a train, responsible for the safety of the train.
- 17A Boolean expression that must evaluate to true for a branch of program execution to continue.
- 18The aircraft emergency frequency, a radio frequency reserved for emergency communications, typically 121.5MHz for civilian use.
Etymology
From Middle English garde, from early Middle French or late Old French guarde (“a guardian, warden, keeper”) (whence modern French garde), from the verb guarder. Doublet of garda, which is from Irish.
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: gaurd,gguard,guadr,guardd,guarrd,gurad,ugard
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for guard
Misspelling Variants of "guard"
Frequency rank: #1,900 in English
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you spell "guard"?
What does "guard" mean?
What words are commonly confused with "guard"?
How do you pronounce "guard"?
What is the origin of the word "guard"?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter G in our English index: