different between ward vs department

English

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /w??d/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /w??d/
• Rhymes: -??(r)d

Etymology 1

From Middle English ward, from Old English weard (“keeper, watchman, guard, guardian, protector; lord, king; possessor”), from Proto-Germanic *warduz (“guard, keeper”), from Proto-Indo-European *wer- (“to heed, defend”). Cognate with German Wart.

Noun

ward (plural wards)

1. (archaic or obsolete) A warden; a guard; a guardian or watchman.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, III.xi:

     no gate they found, them to withhold, / Nor ward to wait at morne and euening late [...].

Etymology 2

From Middle English ward, warde, from Old English weard (“watching, ward, protection, guardianship; advance post; waiting for, lurking, ambuscade”), from Proto-Germanic *ward? (“protection, attention, keeping”), an extension of the stem *wara- (“attentive”) (English wary, beware), from Proto-Indo-European *wer- (“to cover”). Cognate with German Warte (“watchtower”), warten (“wait for”); English guard is a parallel form which came via Old French.

Noun

ward (countable and uncountable, plural wards)

1. Protection, defence.
   1. (obsolete) A guard or watchman; now replaced by warden.
   2. The action of a watchman; monitoring, surveillance (usually in phrases keep ward etc.).
      • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, II.vii:

        Before the dore sat selfe-consuming Care, / Day and night keeping wary watch and ward, / For feare least Force or Fraud should vnaware / Breake in […]

   3. Guardianship, especially of a child or prisoner.
      • 1485, Sir Thomas Malory, Le Morte d'Arthur, Book V:

        So forth the presoners were brought before Arthure, and he commaunded hem into kepyng of the conestabyls warde, surely to be kepte as noble presoners.

      • It is also inconvenient, in Ireland, that the wards and marriages of gentlemen's children should be in the disposal of any of those lords.

   4. An enchantment or spell placed over a designated area or social unit, that prevents any tresspasser from entering; approaching; or even being able to locate said protected premises/demographic.
   5. (historical, Scots law) Land tenure through military service.
   6. (fencing) A guarding or defensive motion or position.
2. A protected place, and by extension, a type of subdivision.
   1. An area of a castle, corresponding to a circuit of the walls.
      • 1942, Rebecca West, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, Canongate 2006, page 149:

        Diocletian […] must certainly have derived some consolation from the grandeur of Aspalaton, the great arcaded wall it turned to the Adriatic, its four separate wards, each town size, and its seventeen watch-towers […].

      • 2000, George RR Martin, A Storm of Swords, Bantam 2011, p. 78:

        With the castle so crowded, the outer ward had been given over to guests to raise their tents and pavilions, leaving only the smaller inner yards for training.

   2. A section or subdivision of a prison.
   3. An administrative division of a borough, city or council.

      • Throughout the trembling city placed a guard, / Dealing an equal share to every ward.

   4. (Britain) A division of a forest.
   5. (Mormonism) A subdivision of the LDS Church, smaller than and part of a stake, but larger than a branch.
   6. A part of a hospital, with beds, where patients reside.
3. A person under guardianship.
   1. A minor looked after by a guardian.
   2. (obsolete) An underage orphan.
4. An object used for guarding.
   1. The ridges on the inside of a lock, or the incisions on a key.
      • , II.1:

        A man must thorowly sound himselfe, and dive into his heart, and there see by what wards or springs the motions stirre.

      • 1852-1854, Charles Tomlinson, Cyclopaedia of Useful Arts and Manufactures

        The lock is made […] more secure by attaching wards to the front, as well as to the back, plate of the lock, in which case the key must be furnished with corresponding notches.

      • 1893, Arthur Conan Doyle, ‘The Resident Patient’, Norton 2005, page 628:

        With the help of a wire, however, they forced round the key. Even without the lens you will perceive, by the scratches on this ward, where the pressure was applied.

Derived terms

• wardroom
• (part of a hospital where patients reside): convalescent ward, critical ward

Translations

Etymology 3

From Middle English warden, from Old English weardian (“to watch, guard, keep, protect, preserve; hold, possess, occupy, inhabit; rule, govern”), from Proto-West Germanic *ward?n, from Proto-Germanic *ward?n?, *ward?n? (“to guard”), from Proto-Indo-European *wer- (“to heed, defend”).

Verb

ward (third-person singular simple present wards, present participle warding, simple past and past participle warded)

1. (transitive) To keep in safety, to watch over, to guard.
2. (transitive) To defend, to protect.
   • 1603, John Florio, translating Michel de Montaigne, Essays, II.3:

     they went to seeke their owne death, and rushed amidst the thickest of their enemies, with an intention, rather to strike, than to ward themselves.

3. (transitive) To fend off, to repel, to turn aside, as anything mischievous that approaches; -- usually followed by off.
   • 1609, Samuel Daniel, The Civile Wares

     Now wards a felling blow, now strikes again.

   • 1717, Joseph Addison, Metamorphoses

     The pointed javelin warded off his rage.

   • It instructs the scholar in the various methods of warding off the force of objections.

4. (intransitive) To be vigilant; to keep guard.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, II.viii:

     They for vs fight, they watch and dewly ward, / And their bright Squadrons round about vs plant [...].

5. (intransitive) To act on the defensive with a weapon.

Synonyms

• (to fend off): ward off

Derived terms

• beward

Translations

See also

• Ward on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Ward in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)

Anagrams

• draw

German

Alternative forms

• wurde (modern German)

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /va?t/

Verb

ward

1. (archaic) first/third-person singular indicative past of werden
   • Genesis 1:3

Usage notes

Occasionally found in deliberately archaicizing, poetic or biblical contexts.

Further reading

• “ward” in Duden online

Maltese

Etymology

From Arabic ?????? (ward).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /wart/

Noun

ward m (collective, singulative warda, plural urad or uradi or urud or uradijiet, paucal wardiet)

1. rose, roses

Derived terms

Manx

Etymology

Borrowed from English ward.

Noun

ward m (genitive singular ward, plural wardyn)

1. ward (in a hospital)

English

Etymology

Borrowed from French département.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /d??p??tm(?)nt/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /d??p??tm?nt/
• Hyphenation: de?part?ment

Noun

department (plural departments)

1. A part, portion, or subdivision.
2. A distinct course of life, action, study, or the like.
3. A specified aspect or quality.

   The 2012 Boston Marathon was outstanding in the temperature department; runners endured temperatures of no less than 88 degrees Fahrenheit.

4. A subdivision of an organization.
   1. (often in proper names) One of the principal divisions of executive government

      the Treasury Department; the Department of Agriculture; police department

   2. (in a university) One of the divisions of instructions

      the physics department; the gender studies department

5. A territorial division; a district; especially, in France, one of the districts into which the country is divided for governmental purposes, similar to a county in the UK and in the USA. France is composed of 101 départements organized in 18 régions, each department is divided into arrondissements, in turn divided into cantons.
   • 2002, Colin Jones, The Great Nation: France from Louis XV to the 1715-99, Penguin 2003, p. 427:

     The departments were the bricks from which the edifice of the nation was to be constructed.

6. (historical) A military subdivision of a country

7. (obsolete) Act of departing; departure.
   • 1624, Henry Wotton, The Elements of Architecture

     sudden 'departments from one extreame to another

Synonyms

• (distinct course): province, specialty
• (division of executive government): ministry

Derived terms

• departmental
• departmentally
• Department of Redundancy Department
• department store
• fire department
• interdepartmental
• police department
• state department
• trouser department

Translations

See also

• province
• state