[Perh. suggested by Du. lijfgarde (obs.), G. leibgarde (in both of which, however, the first element = ‘body’).]
1. A body-guard of soldiers; now pl. (written Life Guards), in the British army, two regiments of cavalry, forming, together with the Royal Horse Guards, the household cavalry.
1648. Declar. Commons, Reb. Ireland, 63. Most of the King’s life-guard are Irish.
1648. Hamilton Papers (Camden), 161. One of Sir Tho. Fairefax lief-guard.
1650. Fuller, Pisgah, II. x. 217. The Cherethites were a kind of lifegard to King David.
1702. Lond. Gaz., No. 3822/3. A stronger Party of French Horse, drawn out of their Life-Guard.
1828. Scott, F. M. Perth, x. A thousand horse mount with him as his daily lifeguard.
1849. Alb. Smith, Pottleton Leg., xxiv. 244. He had been passing the evening with an officer—one of the Life-guards Blue.
1884. Regul. & Ord. Army, 9. Her Majesty’s Regiments of Life Guards, and the Royal Regiment of Horse Guards, have the Precedence of all other Corps whatever.
b. attrib., as † life-guard oath; life-guard-man, a member of a life-guard; also Life Guardsman, a soldier belonging to the Life Guards.
1662. Jessey, Mirab. Ann. Secundus, 84. The biggest life-guard oaths.
1681–2. Wood, Life, 12 Feb. Three men habited like life-guard men.
1771. Smollett, Humph. Cl., 23 June. I am resolved to make you my life-guard-man on the highway.
1840. Dickens, Barn. Rudge, i. His large boots resembled … those worn by our Life Guardsmen at the present day.
1877. Mrs. Forrester, Mignon, I. 11. You are big enough for a Life Guardsman!
2. The guard or protection of a person’s life; a protecting agent or influence. ? Obs.
1648. Sanderson, Serm., II. 226. Our spirits within us, which should be as our life-guard to secure us against all attempts from without.
1652. S. Patrick, Funeral Serm., in J. Smith’s Sel. Disc., 531. Good men are the lifeguard of the world.
1683. Tryon, Way to Health, iii. (1697), 423. Modesty, the Life-guard of Chastity.
a. 1711. Ken, Hymnotheo, Poet. Wks. 1721, III. 317. All the Heav’nly Host your Life-guard are.
1800. Weems, Washington, xiv. (1877), 208. This noble quality was the life-guard of his reason.
3. A device attached to the front of a locomotive for sweeping small obstructions from the track.
1864. Morn. Star, 9 Sept. Had not the life-guard … protected the wheels of the engine as it did the train would … have been thrown off the line.
4. U.S. A person employed to watch against accidents to bathers.
1896. Howells, Impressions & Exp., 217. I came out almost before the life-guard could get ready to throw me a life-preserver. Ibid., 223. The life-guard of the bathing-beach.
Hence † Life-guard v. trans., to protect as a life-guard; to preserve, safeguard.
1690. Mor. Ess. & Disc., xii. 209. ’Tis not a Man’s great Parts … can Life-guard him from Censure, which is a-kin to Death.
