Word.ws English Dictionary

on-guard

on-guard is the alternative form of on guard.

Meaning of on guard

Adjective

on guard (comparative more on guard, superlative most on guard)

  1. The starting position of a fencing bout.
    • We fall on guard, and after all it is a friend who comes to meet us.1881, Robert Louis Stevenson, Virginibus Puerisque
    Synonyms:
    en garde
  2. Vigilant, alert.
  3. Transmitting on the aircraft emergency frequency.

Forms of on-guard

comparativemore on-guard
superlativemost on-guard

Questions about on-guard

What is on-guard the alternative form of?
On-guard is the alternative form of on guard.

Words near on-guard in the dictionary

  1. on-duty
  2. on-field
  3. on-glide
  4. on-glides
  5. on-going
  6. on-guard
  7. on-hand
  8. on-hanger
  9. on-hangers
  10. on-hold
  11. on-hook

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: on-guard (page history and authors); on 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:

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