Spell vs Ward - What's the difference?
spell | ward |
(obsolete) Speech, discourse.
Words or a formula supposed to have magical powers.
A magical effect or influence induced by an incantation or formula.
(obsolete) To speak, to declaim.
* 1590 , Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene , I.ii:
(obsolete) To tell; to relate; to teach.
* T. Warton
To put under the influence of a spell; to affect by a spell; to bewitch; to fascinate; to charm.
* Dryden
* Sir G. Buck
(obsolete) To read (something) as though letter by letter; to peruse slowly or with effort.
* 1851 , :
To be able to write or say the letters that form words.
Of letters: to compose (a word).
* {{quote-book, year=2008, author=Helen Fryer, title=The Esperanto Teacher
, isbn=9780554320076, page=13, publisher=BiblioBazaar, LLC, passage=In Esperanto each letter has only one sound, and each sound is represented in only one way. The words are pronounced exactly as spelt , every letter being sounded.}}
(figuratively) To indicate that (some event) will occur.
* 2003 , U.S. Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbel, Hearing before the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation , ISBN 1422334120:
To constitute; to measure.
* Fuller
To work in place of (someone).
To rest (someone or something).
A shift (of work); a set of workers responsible for a specific turn of labour.
A period of (work or other activity).
*
, title= * {{quote-news, year=2012, date=April 22, author=Sam Sheringham, work=BBC Sport
, title= An indefinite period of time (usually with some qualifying word).
* 1975 , (Bob Dylan), (Tangled Up in Blue)
A period of rest; time off.
(US) A period of illness, or sudden interval of bad spirits, disease etc.
(cricket) An uninterrupted series of alternate overs bowled by a single bowler.
(archaic, or, obsolete) A guard; a guardian or watchman.
* 1590 , Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene , III.xi:
Protection, defence.
# (obsolete) A guard or watchman; now replaced by warden .
#* (William Shakespeare) (1564-1616)
#* (Edmund Spenser) (c.1552–1599)
#* (John Dryden) (1631-1700)
# The action of a watchman; monitoring, surveillance (usually in phrases keep ward etc. ).
#* 1590 , (Edmund Spenser), (The Faerie Queene) , II.vii:
# Guardianship, especially of a child or prisoner.
#* 1485 , Sir (Thomas Malory), (w, Le Morte d'Arthur) , Book V:
#* (William Shakespeare) (1564-1616)
#* (Edmund Spenser) (c.1552–1599)
# An enchantment or spell placed over a designated area, or a social unit, that prevents any tresspasser from entering, approaching and/or even from being able to locate said-protected premises
# (historical, Scots law) Land tenure through military service.
# (fencing) A guarding or defensive motion or position.
#* (William Shakespeare) (1564-1616)
A protected place.
# (archaic) An area of a castle, corresponding to a circuit of the walls.
#* 1942 , (Rebecca West), Black Lamb and Grey Falcon , Canongate 2006, page 149:
#* 2000 , (George RR Martin), A Storm of Swords , Bantam 2011, p. 78:
# A section or subdivision of a prison.
# An administrative division of a borough, city or council.
#* (John Dryden) (1631-1700)
# (UK) A division of a forest.
# (Mormonism) A subdivision of the LDS Church, smaller than and part of a stake, but larger than a branch.
# A room in a hospital where patients reside.
#* {{quote-news, year=2011, date=December 16, author=Denis Campbell, work=Guardian
, title= A person under guardianship.
# A minor looked after by a guardian.
#* , chapter=22
, title= # (obsolete) An underage orphan.
An object used for guarding.
# The ridges on the inside of a lock, or the incisions on a key.
#*, II.1:
#* Tomlinson
#* 1893 , (Arthur Conan Doyle), ‘The Resident Patient’, Norton 2005, page 628:
To keep in safety, to watch over, to guard.
* Spenser
To defend, to protect.
* Shakespeare
* 1603 , John Florio, translating Michel de Montaigne, Essays , II.3:
To fend off, to repel, to turn aside, as anything mischievous that approaches; -- usually followed by off .
* Daniel
* Addison
* I. Watts
To be vigilant; to keep guard.
* 1590 , Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene , II.viii:
To act on the defensive with a weapon.
As nouns the difference between spell and ward
is that spell is (obsolete) speech, discourse or spell can be (dialectal) a splinter, usually of wood or spell can be a shift (of work); a set of workers responsible for a specific turn of labour while ward is (archaic|or|obsolete) a guard; a guardian or watchman or ward can be protection, defence.As verbs the difference between spell and ward
is that spell is (obsolete) to speak, to declaim or spell can be (obsolete) to read (something) as though letter by letter; to peruse slowly or with effort or spell can be to work in place of (someone) while ward is to keep in safety, to watch over, to guard.spell
English
Etymology 1
From (etyl) spel, spellian, spelian, from (etyl) .Noun
(en noun)- He cast a spell to cure warts.
- under a spell
Synonyms
* (words or formula supposed to have magical powers) cantrip, incantation * (magical effect induced by an incantation or formula) cantripVerb
(en verb)- O who can tell / The hidden power of herbes, and might of Magicke spell ?
- Might I that legend find, / By fairies spelt in mystic rhymes.
- Spelled with words of power.
- He was much spelled with Eleanor Talbot.
Etymology 2
From (etyl) .Verb
- "He'll do," said Bildad, eyeing me, and then went on spelling away at his book in a mumbling tone quite audible.
- I find it difficult to spell because I'm dyslexic.
- The letters “a”, “n” and “d” spell “and”.
citation
- This spells trouble.
- Please spell it out for me.
- When we get elected, for instance, we get one of these, and we are pretty much told what is in it, and it is our responsibility to read it and understand it, and if we do not, the Ethics Committee, we can call them any time of day and ask them to spell it out for us
- the Saxon heptarchy, when seven kings put together did spell but one in effect
Derived terms
* speller * spelling * spelloSynonyms
* (to indicate that some event will occur) forebode; mean; signify * (to work in place of someone else) relieve * (to compose a word) (informal) compriseEtymology 3
Origin uncertain; perhaps a form of (speld).Etymology 4
From (etyl) spelen, from (etyl) .Verb
- to spell the helmsman
- They spelled the horses and rested in the shade of some trees near a brook.
Noun
(en noun)Mr. Pratt's Patients, chapter=1 , passage=A chap named Eleazir Kendrick and I had chummed in together the summer afore and built a fish-weir and shanty at Setuckit Point, down Orham way. For a spell we done pretty well. Then there came a reg'lar terror of a sou'wester same as you don't get one summer in a thousand, and blowed the shanty flat and ripped about half of the weir poles out of the sand.}}
Liverpool 0-1 West Brom, passage=Despite his ill-fated spell at Anfield, he received a warm reception from the same Liverpool fans he struggled to win over before being sacked midway through last season.}}
- I had a job in the great North Woods
- Workin' as a cook for a spell .
- But I never did like it all that much
- And one day the ax just fell.
Derived terms
* dry spell * set a spellQuotations
* (English Citations of "spell")Anagrams
* 1000 English basic words ----ward
English
Etymology 1
From (etyl) ward, from (etyl) . Cognate with German Wart.Noun
(en noun)- no gate they found, them to withhold, / Nor ward to wait at morne and euening late [...].
Etymology 2
From (etyl) ward, warde, from (etyl) ; English guard is a parallel form which came via Old French.Noun
(en noun)- the best ward of mine honour
- The assieged castle's ward / Their steadfast stands did mightily maintain.
- For want of other ward , / He lifted up his hand, his front to guard.
- 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
- 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.
- I must attend his majesty's command, to whom I am now in ward .
- 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.
- Thou knowest my old ward ; here I lay, and thus I bore my point.
- Diocletian.
- 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.
- Throughout the trembling city placed a guard, / Dealing an equal share to every ward .
Hospital staff 'lack skills to cope with dementia patients', passage=Many hospitals have not taken simple steps to lessen the distress and confusion which dementia sufferers' often feel on being somewhere so unfamiliar – such as making signs large and easy to read, using colour schemes to help patients find their way around unfamiliar wards and not putting family mementoes such as photographs nearby.}}
The Mirror and the Lamp, passage=Not unnaturally, “Auntie” took this communication in bad part. Thus outraged, she showed herself to be a bold as well as a furious virago. Next day she found her way to their lodgings and tried to recover her ward by the hair of the head.}}
- A man must thorowly sound himselfe, and dive into his heart, and there see by what wards or springs the motions stirre.
- The lock is mademore 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.
- 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.
Etymology 3
From (etyl) warden, from (etyl) .Verb
(en verb)- Whose gates he found fast shut, no living wight / To ward the same.
- Tell him it was a hand that warded him / From a thousand dangers.
- 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.
- Now wards a felling blow, now strikes again.
- The pointed javelin warded off his rage.
- It instructs the scholar in the various methods of warding off the force of objections.
- They for vs fight, they watch and dewly ward , / And their bright Squadrons round about vs plant [...].