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.