regardant

alternative reguardant

1. not comparablegovernmentWith the head turned toward the back of the body.First known use 15th c.

   The dog was waiting for him, her paws on the second tread, pere regardant with a happy lolling tongue.

   1956, Anthony Burgess, Time for a Tiger (The Malayan Trilogy), published 1972, page 25

   2 more examples

   The official blazon of the arms of Perth is "Gules, a Holy Lambe passant regardant staff and cross argent, with the banner of St. Andrew proper, all within a double tressure counter-flowered of the second": […].

   1956 July, Col. H. C. B. Rogers, “Railway Heraldry”, in Railway Magazine, page 480

   I see a forked beast squatting on the midden of the world, red-eyed, regardant, gnawing on a shinbone: poor, dumb destroyer.

   1993, John Banville, Ghosts

2. not comparableWatchful, attentive; contemplative.First known use 16th c.

   He stood regardant for a moment.

   1895 October, Stephen Crane, chapter VIII, in The Red Badge of Courage: An Episode of the American Civil War, New York, N.Y.: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC, page 84

   2 more examples

   To horse, to horse: thus once Eurydice, / With looks regardant, did the Thracian gaze […].

   1613, John Marston, William Barksted, The Insatiate Countess, II.3

   And now others, casually regardant, passed the place in automobiles ….

   1976 September, Saul Bellow, Humboldt’s Gift, New York, N.Y.: Avon Books, →ISBN, page 183