Guardrail

//ˈɡɑɹdˌɹeɪl// noun

noun ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A rail set alongside a dangerous place as a barrier, to improve safety.
  2. 2
    a railing placed alongside a stairway or road for safety wordnet
  3. 3
    A rail set alongside a dangerous place as a barrier, to improve safety.; A strengthened barrier installed on the sides of a (usually major) road to keep vehicles on the highway and reduce the risk and/or impact of crashes. Canada, US
  4. 4
    Any barrier designed to prevent accidents or mistakes. broadly, figuratively

    "Set guardrails on Visual Studio Live Share We’ve heard from Live Share users that they want to use Live Share in their organization, but without controls to prevent individuals from outside their company domain joining Live Share sessions, they’re blocked. We are excited that this and many other requested policies are now available."

  5. 5
    Synonym of check rail.

Synonyms

All synonyms
safety railaegisarm guardbackstopbufferbulwark

Example

More examples

"Sami crashed through the guardrail."

Etymology

From guard + rail.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.