ward off
verb
Simple meaning
Avert, turn away.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
wawrdawfSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈwɔɹˈdɔf
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
Avert, turn away, or repel
Prevent the occurrence of; prevent from happening
transitive
To avert or prevent.
transitive
To parry, or turn aside.
lacrosse
To, while in possession of the ball, move the free hand or the hand and arm holding the butt end of the stick laterally into a defending player's body or stick.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Avert, turn away, or repel
Used this way, ward off is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- No strong connotation
- 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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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.