Word.ws English Dictionary

guarded

/ˈɡɑːdɪd//ˈɡɑɹdɪd/

guarded is the simple past and past participle of guard.

Adjective

guarded (comparative more guarded, superlative most guarded)

  1. Cautious; restrained.
    • guarded outlook
    • guarded optimism
    1. A good outcome has fair odds of happening but close monitoring is important because odds of deterioration are not low.
      • guarded prognosis
      • prognosis is guarded
  2. Watched over; supervised.
  3. (especially) Having a guard, e.g. a crossguard (on a sword), a faceguard (on a helmet), or a hatguard (on a chapeau).
    • On the helmet , which is of gold, affrontee, guarded with perpendicular bars, and adorned with a mantled gules, doubled, or, is this crest.1819, Thomas George Lomax, A Short Account of the City and Close of Lichfield: To which is Added A Short Account of the Cathedral ..., page 31
    • On a chapeau gules, guarded ermine, a gurnet (fish) urinant proper.1866, John Edwin Cussans, The Grammar of Heraldry, page 84

Meaning of guard

Verb

guard (third-person singular simple present guards, present participle guarding, simple past and past participle guarded)

  1. (transitive) To protect from danger; to secure against surprise, attack, or injury; to keep in safety; to defend.
    • All of the mountain passes are guarded by troops.
  2. (transitive) To keep watch over, in order to prevent escape or restrain from acts of violence, or the like.
    • Guard the prisoner.
  3. (ambitransitive) To watch by way of caution or defense; to be cautious; to be in a state or position of defense or safety.
    • Careful people guard against mistakes.
  4. (transitive) To protect the edge of, especially with an ornamental border; hence, to face or ornament with lists, laces, etc.
    • The body of your discourse is sometime guarded with fragments, and the guards are but slightly basted on neither.1598–1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “Much Adoe about Nothing”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
  5. (transitive) To fasten by binding; to gird.

See all 24 meanings of guard

Forms of guarded

comparativemore guarded
superlativemost guarded

Words formed from guarded

Phrases with guarded

Questions about guarded

What does guarded mean?
Guarded means cautious; restrained.
What is guarded the simple past and past participle of?
Guarded is the simple past and past participle of guard.
What part of speech is guarded?
Guarded is an adjective.
How do you pronounce guarded?
Guarded is pronounced /ˈɡɑɹdɪd/ (US).

Words near guarded in the dictionary

  1. guardants
  2. guardband
  3. guardbands
  4. Guardbridge
  5. guarde
  6. guarded
  7. guarded against
  8. guarded one's tongue
  9. guarded rights
  10. guardedly
  11. guardedness

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: guarded (page history and authors); guard (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-guarded.ogg, En-gb-guarded.ogg.

Cite this entry: “guarded.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/guarded. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.