warder
warder noun: a guard, especially in a prison.
Noun (1)
warder (plural warders)
- A guard, especially in a prison.
- Kent. Mortimer, ’tis I.
But hath thy portion wrought so happily?
Younger Mortimer. It hath, my lord: the warders all asleep,
I thank them, gave me leave to pass in peace.1594, Christopher Marlow[e], The Troublesome Raigne and Lamentable Death of Edward the Second, King of England: […], London: […] [Eliot’s Court Press] for Henry Bell, […], published 1622, →OCLC, [Act... - Above the gloomy portal arch, / Timing his footsteps to a march, / The warder kept his guard, / Low humming, as he paced along, / Some ancient Border gathering song.1808 February 22, Walter Scott, “Canto First. The Castle.”, in Marmion; a Tale of Flodden Field, Edinburgh: […] J[ames] Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Company, […]; London: William...
- Kent. Mortimer, ’tis I.
- One who or that which wards or repels.
- The conspicuous position thus accorded to the cat as a warder-off of evil fortune seems oddly paralleled, though not imitated, by the place accorded to the same animal in popular European folklore.1876, The China Review, Or, Notes and Queries on the Far East, page 79
Noun (2)
warder (plural warders)
- A truncheon or staff carried by a king or commander, used to signal commands.
- When, lo! the king chang’d suddenly his Mind,
Casts down his Warder to arrest them there;1595, Samuel Daniel, Civil Wars, in The Poetical Works of Mr. Samuel Daniel, Volume II, London: R. Gosling, 1718, Book I, stanza 62, p. 25 - Stay, the king hath thrown his warder down.1595 December 9 (first known performance), William Shakespeare, “The Life and Death of King Richard the Second”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to...
- When, lo! the king chang’d suddenly his Mind,
Proper noun capitalized: Warder
Warder (plural Warders)
- A surname from Old English.
warder meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Telugu and Malayalam
warder in Tamil
- சிறைக் காவலர், சிறைக்காவலர்
warder in Urdu
- قید خانے کا نگہبان
warder in Telugu
- guard
- జైలు అధికారి jailu adhikāri
warder in Malayalam
- തടവറപ്രമാണി, മേലധികാരി, സൂക്ഷിപ്പുകാരൻ, ദ്വാരപാലകൻ
More languagesFewer languages
- warder in Kannada
- ಕಾವಲುಗಾರ, ಕಾರಾಗೃಹ ಪಾಲಕ
- warder in Myanmar
- ထောင်ကြပ် htaungkrap
Examples of warder in a sentence
- Nobody else spoke, but they noticed the long stripes on Okonkwo’s back where the warder’s whip had cut into his flesh.1958 June 17, Chinua Achebe, chapter 24, in Things Fall Apart, London: Heinemann, →OCLC:
- And ſo ſaying, the Herald caſt down his warder.1764 December 24 (indicated as 1765), Onuphrio Muralto, translated by William Marshal [pseudonyms; Horace Walpole], chapter III, in The...
Forms of warder
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | warders |
| Proper noun | |
| plural | Warders |
Origin of warder
From Middle English warder, wardere, perhaps in part continuing Old English weardere (“one who holds a country; inhabitant”), from Proto-West Germanic *wardārī (“guard, follower, watchman, lookout”), equivalent to ward + -er. Cognate with Dutch waarder (“inspector”), German Low German Wärder (“guard, watchman”), German Wärter (“guard, keeper, attendant”).
From Middle English warder, wardere, also as Middle English warderer, warderere, probably a derivative of Etymology 1 above.
Habitational surname, from the village of Wardour, Wiltshire, named with Old English weard (“guard”) + ōra (“bank, slope”).
Phrases with warder
Words that rhyme with warder
- order
- boarder
- border
- disorder
- recorder
- forder
- global order
- hoarder
- major depressive disorder
- nature-deficit disorder
- payment order
- shortboarder
2 more rhymesFewer rhymes
Questions about warder
- What does warder mean?
- Warder means a guard, especially in a prison.
- What is warder in Tamil?
- Warder in Tamil is சிறைக் காவலர், சிறைக்காவலர். See Warder meaning in Tamil.
- How do you use warder in a sentence?
- Nobody else spoke, but they noticed the long stripes on Okonkwo’s back where the warder’s whip had cut into his flesh.
- What part of speech is warder?
- Warder can be a noun or a proper noun.
- What is the plural of warder?
- The plural of warder is warders.
Words near warder in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: warder (page history and authors); Warder (page history and authors); warder (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); warder (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); warder (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); warder (Kannada Wiktionary) (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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-warder.wav.
Cite this entry: “warder.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/warder. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.