warder

¹ American  

[wawr-der] / ˈwɔr dər /

noun

1. a person who guards something, as a doorkeeper or caretaker.

2. a soldier or other person set to guard an entrance.

3. Chiefly British. an official having charge of prisoners in a jail.

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warder ² American  

[wawr-der] / ˈwɔr dər /

noun

1. a truncheon or staff of office or authority, used in giving signals.

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warder ¹ British  

/ ˈwɔːdə /

noun

1. an officer in charge of prisoners in a jail

2. a person who guards or has charge of something

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warder ² British  

/ ˈwɔːdə /

noun

1. (formerly) a staff or truncheon carried by a ruler as an emblem of authority and used to signal his wishes or intentions

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Other Word Forms

• wardership
  noun

Etymology

Origin of warder¹

1350–1400; Middle English warder ( e ) ( see ward, -er ¹); compare Anglo-French wardere < Middle English

Origin of warder²

1400–50; late Middle English < ?

Example Sentences

“Lockdown was probably the oddest experience in my life,” says McGowran, who spent nearly 26 years in the Royal Air Force before becoming a yeoman warder.

From Washington Post • Jul. 8, 2021

They were quite small children, the youngest—the one to whom the warder gave the biscuits—being a tiny little chap, for whom they had evidently been unable to find clothes small enough to fit.

From Slate • Jun. 16, 2018

Her stories take the figure of the imprisoned “madwoman,” as found in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” or Charlotte Brontë’s “Jane Eyre,” and make her the warder of her own jail.

From The New Yorker • Oct. 10, 2016

Rory Bremner says his Jeremy Corbyn is a work in progress - his starting point is the ineffectual, well-meaning warder Barraclough, in classic prison sitcom Porridge.

From BBC • Dec. 30, 2015

I motioned to my colleagues not to move, and I addressed the warder: “I would like you to produce the document from the commissioner of prisons authorizing our pictures to be taken.”

From "Long Walk to Freedom" by Nelson Mandela