guarded
verb
Form of guard , past tense of guard.
Simple meaning
Watch over or shield from danger or harm.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
gahrduhdSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈɡɑɹdəd
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
verb
past tense of guard
Watch over or shield from danger or harm; protect
past tense of guard
To protect from danger; to secure against surprise, attack, or injury; to keep in safety; to defend.
past tense of guard
To keep watch over, in order to prevent escape or restrain from acts of violence, or the like.
past tense of guard
To protect the edge of, especially with an ornamental border; hence, to face or ornament with lists, laces, etc.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
This meaning: Watch over or shield from danger or harm; protect
Used this way, guarded is a reasonably familiar word with a clearly unfavourable pull. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Negative
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Moderate
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Serious and weighty
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
A person who keeps watch over something or someone.
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What Does It Mean Here?
Words can change meaning depending on context.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.