Garde

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A role involving defense or protection of a place or person; a formal group assigned to guard duties; a specific stance adopted in fencing for readiness and defense
2. The act of shielding or watching over something or someone; an organized body of personnel assigned for security; a particular posture used in the sport of fencing to prepare for attack
3. An action or position taken to protect against attack or harm; a designated team or corps responsible for security; a tactical position or pose maintained in fencing to defend and respond

Etymology: The English word "garde" is simply an obsolete spelling of "guard", and it arrived in English from French around the late Middle Ages. Its ancestry runs back through Old French "guarde", meaning a guardian, warden or keeper, which came from the verb "guarder", "to keep, ward, guard, save, preserve". That verb was borrowed into early Medieval Latin as "wardare", drawn from the Frankish "wardēn", and ultimately from a Proto-Germanic verb meaning "to guard, protect". The most striking thing about this lineage is that English has two words descended from the same Germanic root. The inherited English "ward" came straight from Old English "weardian", while "guard" came back into English by the French route, so the two are doublets. The French "garde" survives today in the sense of a guard or sentry, and the English "garde" of the medieval period is essentially the same word that French kept.