Word.ws English Dictionary

arrière-garde

arrière-garde noun: the rearguard of an army or other force.

Noun (1)

arrière-garde (plural arrière-gardes)

  1. (obsolete) The rearguard of an army or other force.
    Synonyms:
    rearguard
    Antonyms:
    avant-garde

Noun (2)

arrière-garde (plural arrière-gardes)

  1. Any group of people who favour older, traditional approaches over the modern or avant-garde.
    Synonyms:
    old guard
    Antonyms:
    avant-garde

Synonyms of arrière-garde

Antonyms

Forms of arrière-garde

pluralarrière-gardes

Origin of arrière-garde

From Middle English arryeregarde, from Anglo-Norman arer-garde and Middle French ariere-garde, arrer-garde, arriere-garde, arrer-garde, from Old French arieregarde, from arere (“behind”) + guarde (“guard”).

Unadapted borrowing from French arrière-garde, by analogy with avant-garde.

Questions about arrière-garde

What does arrière-garde mean?
Arrière-garde means the rearguard of an army or other force.
What part of speech is arrière-garde?
Arrière-garde is a noun.
What is the plural of arrière-garde?
The plural of arrière-garde is arrière-gardes.

Words near arrière-garde in the dictionary

  1. arrivistes
  2. arrivistic
  3. Arrizon
  4. Arrizons
  5. arrière
  6. arrière-garde
  7. arrière-gardes
  8. arrière-pensée
  9. arrière-pensées
  10. arrière-voussure
  11. arrière-voussures

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: arrière-garde (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “arrière-garde.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/arri%C3%A8re-garde. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.