warders

Noun (1)

warder (plural warders)

1. 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...
2. 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)

1. (archaic) 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

See all 4 meanings of warder