Mynder

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An archaic term for someone who looks after, guards, or watches over another person
2. A former word for a guardian who keeps watch over and protects someone in their care
3. Refers to a person who minds, tends, or protects another, in the old sense of guardianship

Etymology: A "mynder" is an older spelling of "minder," a person whose job is to look after someone or something. The spelling reflects how English once wrote the sound of "i" before "nd," which is why the word looks unfamiliar today even though it is the same word. The root is the verb "mind," which comes from Old English "gemynd," meaning memory or remembrance. Over time, "mind" moved from keeping something in memory to keeping something in one's care, so to "mind" a child or a shop came to mean to attend to it. A minder is therefore literally someone who attends to a charge. The sense of a hired protector, a bodyguard, is a later extension of that idea, and it is the one most people now associate with the word.