Ward v. t. [imp. & p. p. Warded; p. pr. & vb. n. Warding.]
1. To keep in safety; to watch; to guard; formerly, in a specific sense, to guard during the day time.
Whose gates he found fast shut, no living wight
To ward the same. --Spenser.
2. To defend; to protect.
Tell him it was a hand that warded him
From thousand dangers. --Shak.
3. To defend by walls, fortifications, etc. [Obs.]
4. To fend off; to repel; to turn aside, as anything mischievous that approaches; -- usually followed by off.
Now wards a felling blow, now strikes again. --Daniel.
The pointed javelin warded off his rage. --Addison.
It instructs the scholar in the various methods of warding off the force of objections. --I. Watts.