Emily Dickinson Lexicon

WARD, v.t. [waurd; Sax. weardian; Sw. vårda; Dan. værger; probably from Sax. warian, werian; Goth. waryan; D. weeren, to defend, guard, prevent; W. gwaru, to fend; allied to wary, aware; Fr. garder, for guarder, It. guardare, Sp. guardar. The primary sense is to repel, to keep off; hence to stop; hence to defend by repelling or other means.]

1. To guard; to keep in safety; to watch. Whose gates he found fast shut, no living wight / To ward the same. – Spenser. In this sense, ward is obsolete, as we have adopted the French of the same word, to guard. We now never apply ward to the thing to be defended, but always to the thing against which it is to be defended. We ward off a blow or dagger, and we guard a person or place.]
2. To defend; to protect. Tell him it was a hand that warded him / From thousand dangers. – Shak. [Obs. See the remark, supra.]
3. To fend off; to repel; to turn aside any thing mischievous that approaches. Now wards a failing blow, now strikes again. – Daniel. The pointed jav'lin warded off his rage. – Addison. It instructs the scholar in the various methods of warding off the force of objections. – Watts. [This is the present use of ward. To ward off is now the more general expression, nor can I, with Johnson, think it less elegant.]