watch and ward
Americannoun
Etymology
Origin of watch and ward
Middle English word dating back to 1350–1400
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
He ends with the sort of message that drives the flawed and often inadequate heroes of these books to stand up and resist or speak truth to power: “Let us, then, look forward to the future with that salutary fear which makes men keep watch and ward for freedom, not with that faint and idle terror which depresses and enervates the heart.”
From Salon
It is needless to say that the dead steersman has been reverently removed from the place where he held his honourable watch and ward till death—a steadfastness as noble as that of the young Casabianca—and placed in the mortuary to await inquest.
From Literature
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Excerpted in H. L. Mencken’s The American Mercury, the book became a cause célèbre when the New England Watch and Ward Society banned the issue in which it appeared.
From The New Yorker
Not long after the Luddites first sabotaged knitting machines in Nottinghamshire in 1811, a Watch and Ward group was established to protect against rioting gangs.
From BBC
Watch and ward — reporting with regularity to— Clepp Asquith, Esq.
From Literature
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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.