Etymology

vanguard

V4A1N1G2U1A1R1D2

Today it means: The leading units at the front of an army or fleet. Full definition →

Middle English vandgard, vaunte garde, vaunt garde, wantgard ← Old French avangarde, avant-garde, avantgarde
Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

The story

  1. Old French · derived fromavangarde, avant-garde, avantgarde
  2. Middle English · inherited fromvandgard, vaunte garde, vaunt garde, wantgard
  3. English todayvanguard

From Middle English vandgard, vaunte garde, vaunt garde, wantgard, from advaunte-garde, avauntgard with aphesis, from Old French avangarde, avant-garde, avantgarde, from avant (“before; in front”) + garde (“guard”). Doublet of avant-garde and vaward.

Words from the same roots

Old Frenchavangarde,avant-garde,avantgarde all →

avant-garde

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.