guarded

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈɡɑɹdɪd/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈɡɑːdɪd/

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guarded

1. simple past and past participle of guard

guarded (comparative more guarded, superlative most guarded)

1. Cautious; restrained.

   The employees reacted with guarded optimism to the new agreement reached by their trade union.

2. Watched over; supervised.
3. (medicine, often euphemistic) When the practitioner formulating the opinion does not have enough information to know, or to foretell, what the outcome may be.

   guarded prognosis

4. (especially heraldry) Having a guard, e.g. a crossguard (on a sword), a faceguard (on a helmet), or a hatguard (on a chapeau).
   • 1819, Thomas George Lomax, A Short Account of the City and Close of Lichfield: To which is Added A Short Account of the Cathedral ..., page 31:

     On the helmet , which is of gold, affrontee, guarded with perpendicular bars, and adorned with a mantled gules, doubled, or, is this crest.

   • 1866, John Edwin Cussans, The Grammar of Heraldry, page 84:

     On a chapeau gules, guarded ermine, a gurnet (fish) urinant proper.

   • 1893, Notes and Queries, page 129:

     Sable, an eagle displayed argent, crowned with an electoral bonnet gules, guarded argent (or ermine).

   • 2015 12, Elizabeth Archibald, David F. Johnson, Arthurian Literature XXXII, Boydell & Brewer, →ISBN, page 160:

     Or, three swords in fess palewise azure, guarded vert, hilted gules; unidentified. Fouquet suggests that this is the device of the fictional king of Monteini, but notes that it might be the device of the fictional king of Bicheny.