vanguard

Noun

vanguard (plural vanguards)

1. The leading units at the front of an army or fleet.
   • They ſay, that the King diuided his Armie into three Battailes; whereof the Vant-guard onely well ſtrengthened with wings, came to fight.1622, Francis, Lord Verulam, Viscount St. Alban [i.e. Francis Bacon], The Historie of the Raigne of King Henry the Seventh, […], London: […] W[illiam] Stansby for Matthew Lownes, and William Barret...

   Synonyms:

   advance guard, avant, avant-garde, van, vaward

   Antonyms:

   arrière-garde, rearguard

2. (broadly) The person or people at the forefront of a group or movement.
   • By some paradoxical evolution rancour and intolerance have been established in the vanguard of primitive Christianity. Mrs. Spoker, in common with many of the stricter disciples of righteousness, was as inclement in demeanour as she was cadaverous in aspect.1921, Ben Travers, “The Nest”, in A Cuckoo in the Nest, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, published 1925, →OCLC, part I (“Come He Will”), page 35
   • [O]ne minute this "Jihadi John" was struggling to get by, and get accepted, in drizzly England, unemployed with a mortgage to pay and a chip on his shoulder, and the next he stands in brilliant Levantine sunlight, where everything is clear and etched, at the vanguard of some Sunni Risorgimento...2014 November 17, Roger Cohen, “The Horror! The Horror! The Trauma of ISIS”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 17 Nov 2014

   Synonyms:

   avant-garde, remnant