watch and ward

American  

noun

1. a continuous watch or vigil, by or as by night and by day, especially for the purpose of guarding.

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Etymology

Origin of watch and ward

Middle English word dating back to 1350–1400

Example Sentences

He ends with the sort of message that drives the flawed and often inadequate heroes of these books to stand up and resist or speak truth to power: “Let us, then, look forward to the future with that salutary fear which makes men keep watch and ward for freedom, not with that faint and idle terror which depresses and enervates the heart.”

From Salon

Excerpted in H. L. Mencken’s The American Mercury, the book became a cause célèbre when the New England Watch and Ward Society banned the issue in which it appeared.

From The New Yorker

“After being forcibly removed they were kept under watch and ward by the armed guards of M/s Vedanta and no outsider was allowed to meet them. They were effectively being kept as prisoners.”

From New York Times

Not long after the Luddites first sabotaged knitting machines in Nottinghamshire in 1811, a Watch and Ward group was established to protect against rioting gangs.

From BBC

I must keep watch and ward till the Sassanach is druv out of Ireland, and the Thiernas o' Breffni in their glory again.'

From Project Gutenberg