vanguard

American  

[van-gahrd] / ˈvænˌgɑrd /

noun

• vanguards
  plural

1. the foremost division or the front part of an army; advance guard; van.

2. the forefront in any movement, field, activity, or the like.

3. the leaders of any intellectual or political movement.

4. (initial capital letter) a U.S. three-stage, satellite-launching rocket, the first two stages powered by liquid-propellant engines and the third by a solid-propellant engine.

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vanguard British  

/ ˈvænˌɡɑːd /

noun

1. the leading division or units of a military force

2. the leading position in any movement or field, or the people who occupy such a position

   the vanguard of modern literature

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• vanguards
  plural

Etymology

Origin of vanguard

First recorded in 1480–90; earlier van(d)gard(e), from Middle French avangarde, variant of avant-garde; see avaunt, guard

Explanation

If you are in the vanguard, you're up front. It could be that you are in the vanguard of an advancing army, or in the vanguard of any movement, trend, or occupation. Vanguard is an old variation of the French word avant-garde meaning "fore-guard" or "front guard." Vanguard and avant-garde have the same basic meaning, but avant-garde generally describes artistic endeavors, while vanguard can be more widely applied. You might talk about the vanguard of fashion on the red carpet, the vanguard of medical research at a university, or the vanguard of a political movement at a demonstration.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

vanguard vanguards

This has also been an incredible front line of the technological vanguard for how war is going to be fought in the future.

From Slate ● Aug. 6, 2026

Four years later, women's cricket hit the big time and Beaumont was at the vanguard.

From BBC ● Jul. 8, 2026

And so an outcast couple, immoral and ungovernable, served as the vanguard for new European settlements.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 19, 2026

In the vanguard of the latest bull stampede is the semiconductor sector, which is due to get another lift Friday as Intel shares see a big post-earnings-report pop.

From MarketWatch ● Apr. 24, 2026

He himself had mentioned John Kwang as a part of that vanguard, though his implication was then cast only in terms of succession.

From "Native Speaker" by Chang-rae Lee

And it found him in the person of Yevgeny Prigozhin, one of those quixotic, improbable adventurers who, over the past two centuries, have served as the vanguards of new forms of empire.

From Salon ● Oct. 22, 2023

“Fashion designers are like the vanguards of innovation, and I love his clothes,” Biden said.

From Seattle Times ● Feb. 14, 2023

Mr. Inamori was often placed alongside Sony’s Akio Morita and vehicle-maker Soichiro Honda as the vanguards of Japan’s industrial rebound after World War II to become one of the world’s top economies.

From Washington Post ● Sep. 3, 2022

From the beginning it was called "the experiment" and the children were referred to as "vanguards", says Mr Jensen.

From BBC ● Mar. 9, 2022

Our present spaceships, with their robot crews, are the harbingers, the vanguards of future human expeditions to the planets.

From "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan