watch and ward
watch and ward noun: the charge or care of certain officers to keep a watch by night and a guard by day in towns, cities, and other districts, for the preservation of the public peace.
Noun
watch and ward (uncountable)
- The charge or care of certain officers to keep a watch by night and a guard by day in towns, cities, and other districts, for the preservation of the public peace.
- Uninterrupted vigilance.
- The narrow seas around these isles, where British admirals keep watch and ward upon the marches of the Atlantic Ocean, are subject to the turbulent sway of the West Wind.1904–1906, Joseph Conrad, chapter XXV, in The Mirror of the Sea, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.; London: Harper & Brothers, published October 1906, →OCLC
- You need
A starker breed
To cherish you and guard,
Keep watch and ward,
Or strike if strike they must!1917, Lee Wilson Dodd, "To America" (poem), in Fifes and Drums
Verb
watch and ward (third-person singular simple present watches and wards, present participle watching and warding, simple past and past participle watched and warded)
- To keep constant watch over
- we might have been carried in swift safety, and watched and warded by well-paid pointsmen, for half the present fares1894, John Ruskin, Munera Pulveris
watch and ward meaning in Tamil
watch and ward in Tamil
- அணுகுதற்கரிய காவல், இடைவிடாக்காவல்
Forms of watch and ward
| third-person singular present | watches and wards |
|---|---|
| present participle | watching and warding |
| past participle | watched and warded |
| past | watched and warded |
Questions about watch and ward
- What does watch and ward mean?
- Watch and ward means the charge or care of certain officers to keep a watch by night and a guard by day in towns, cities, and other districts, for the preservation of the public peace.
- What is watch and ward in Tamil?
- Watch and ward in Tamil is அணுகுதற்கரிய காவல், இடைவிடாக்காவல். See Watch and ward meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is watch and ward?
- Watch and ward can be a noun or a verb.
Words near watch and ward in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: watch and ward (page history and authors); watch and ward (Tamil 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.
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Cite this entry: “watch and ward.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/watch_and_ward. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.