## Meanings
1. A section of a hospital for patients who need similar care.
2. A child or young person who is under the legal protection of a guardian or court.
3. To keep something harmful away, usually used with 'off'.

## Examples
- They moved her to the children's ward.
- After his parents died, he became a ward of the state.
- She drank hot tea to ward off the cold.

## Derived Forms
- beward
- bridge-ward
- hoard-ward
- march-ward
- wardian
- wardmoot
- wardmote

## Roots and Affixes
- Root: ward
- Root: weard
- Root: *wardu
- Root: *wardō
- Root: *wer-

## Etymology
From Middle English ward, warde, from Old English weard (“watching, ward, protection, guardianship; advance post; waiting for, lurking, ambuscade”), from Proto-West Germanic *wardu, from Proto-Germanic *wardō (“protection, attention, keeping”), an extension of the stem *wara- (“attentive”) (English wary, beware), from Proto-Indo-European *wer- (“to cover”). Cognate with German Warte (“watchtower”), warten (“wait for”); English guard is a parallel form which came via Old French.

## AI Etymology
Ward is from Middle English ward, warde, from Old English weard (“watching, ward, protection, guardianship; advance post; waiting for, lurking, ambuscade”), from Proto-West Germanic *wardu, from Proto-Germanic *wardō (“protection, attention, keeping”), an extension of the stem *wara- (“attentive”) (English wary, beware), from Proto-Indo-European *wer- (“to cover”). Cognate with German Warte (“watchtower”), warten (“wait for”); English guard is a parallel form which came via Old French. In present-day use, it can mean a section of a hospital for patients who need similar care, or a child or young person who is under the legal protection of a guardian or court.

## Topics
- Law & Government
- Safety & Risk

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