Also 7 wardour, Sc. wairdour. [a. AF. wardere, wardour, agent-n. f. warder, north-eastern dial. var. of OF. garder to GUARD.] I. One who wards or guards.
1. A soldier or other person set to guard an entrance; also, a watchman on a tower.
c. 1400. Destr. Troy, XI. 4690. Comyn to the castell,… the Grekes Ingird, gripped the warders, And all the fonnet folke fell to the dethe.
1560. Daus, trans. Sleidane’s Comm., 90. So were the warders [L. stationes] remoued from the gates the same daye.
1577. trans. Bullinger’s Decades, III. v. (1592), 338. When the temple was builded, there were porters and warders of the temple appointed among the Leuits.
1605. Shaks., Macb., IV. i. 56. Though Castles topple on their Warders heads.
1605. Verstegan, Dec. Intell., x. (1628), 327. Wee call him that waiteth at the Towre one of the ward or a warder.
1679–88. Moneys Secr. Serv. Chas. II. & Jas. II. (Camden), 93. Wages due to their respective husbands as late wardours in the Tower of London.
1697. Dryden, Æneis, II. 453. The Warders of the Gate but scarce maintain Th’unequal Combat.
1802. Mrs. Radcliffe, Gaston de Blondeville, Posth. Wks. (1826), III. 4. Amongst these, were the wardours of a postern, near the north walls.
1813. Scott, Trierm., I. xiii. Upon the watch-tower’s airy round No warder stood his horn to sound.
1831. Wordsw., Yarrow Revisited, 6. Once more, by Newark’s Castle-gate Long left without a warder, I stood.
1853. Dickens, Bleak Ho., xxxii. The gates [of Lincoln’s Inn] are shut; and the night-porter, a solemn warder with a mighty power of sleep, keeps guard in his lodge.
b. transf. and fig.
1605. Shaks., Macb., I. vii. 65. Memorie, the Warder of the Braine, Shall be a Fume, and the Receit of Reason A Lymbeck onely.
1818. Scott, Br. Lamm., xxvi. There mounted guard on the other side of the mirror two stout warders of Scottish lineage; a jug,… and a quegh, or bicker.
1849. Lytton, K. Arthur, VI. vi. Hill after hill the land’s grey warders rose.
1880. W. Watson, Prince’s Quest, III. A fair-built seaport, warder of the land And watcher of the wave.
† 2. The title of an English official in Ireland.
1617. Moryson, Itin., II. 97. Warders in Leinster per annum one thousand three hundred ten li nineteene s. two pence.
3. An official in charge of prisoners in a jail.
1855. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., xvii. IV. 22. The prisoner’s confinement was not strict…. He was permitted to go into the country under the care of a warder.
1863. P. Barry, Dockyard Econ., 152. The convicts and warders in Milbank Prison.
1904. A. Griffiths, 50 Yrs. Publ. Service, xvii. 241. The Chief Warder … had been promoted to his office from Dartmoor.
4. attrib. and Comb.
1831. G. P. R. James, Phil. Augustus, xix. De Coucy hastened to demand of the squire wherefore he had sounded the great warder horn, which hung in the watch-tower.
1864. Swinburne, Atalanta, 1213. Where the dawn Cheers first these warder gods that face the sun.
1904. A. Griffiths, 50 Yrs. Publ. Service, xii. 163. The warder officers arraigned before him all those whom they desired to report for offences.
† II. 5. Sc. A person in ward, a prisoner. Obs. rare.
1584. Acts Jas. VI. (1814), III. 352/1. The gard and keping of prissoneris and wardours.
1629. Reg. Privy Council Scot., Ser. II. III. 12. Who under pretext ard cullour of freindship unto the wairdours sould crave accesse unto them…. Who … sould stryke the jaylour and so give way to the wairdours and escape.
