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Warder
Definitions
- 1 A surname from Old English.
- 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."
- 2 A truncheon or staff carried by a king or commander, used to signal commands. archaic
"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, When, lo! the king chang’d suddenly his Mind, Casts down his Warder to arrest them there;"
- 3 a person who works in a prison and is in charge of prisoners wordnet
- 4 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."
Etymology
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”).
See also for "warder"
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