(wôrd) noun
1. The act of guarding; protection.
2. The state of being under a guard or guardian; custody; confinement; also, guardianship; control.
3. A guarded or protected place: a prison: jail: also, a division or subdivision of a jail or hospital: the maternity ward.
4. A territorial division of a city, made for convenience of government; also, in certain northern counties of England, a division equivalent to a hundred or wapentake.
5. A person who is in the charge or under the protection of a guardian.
6. An instrument or means of defense; a protection.
7. A defensive attitude or movement, as in fencing; guard.
8. A projection inside a lock, designed to obstruct the turning of any key other than the proper one; also, a corresponding notch in the bit of a key.
9. In feudal law, a minor under the care or protection of a guardian.
10. A warden; overseer.
11. A local congregation within the Mormon Church.
12. Obs. A company of men detailed to defend or guard; a garrison; watch. See synonyms under SHELTER.
—v.t.
1. To repel or turn aside, as a thrust or blow: usually with off.
2. To put in a ward; keep in safety.
3. Archaic To guard; protect. [OE weard a watching <weardian watch, guard; infl. in some senses by AF warde, OF garde <Gmc.]

Toward; in the direction of: upward, homeward. Also –wards. [OE -weard, -weardes at, toward]

(wôrd). Artemas,
1727–1800, American Revolutionary general.
—Artemus
Pseudonym of Charles Farrar Browne, 1834–67, U.S. humorist.
—Mary Augusta,
1851–1920, née Arnold, English novelist: known as Mrs. Humphrey Ward.