Night, honorary, enhanced, solemn, round-the-clock, walking ... So you can list endlessly. But will it help to understand what a guard is? More likely no than yes. Therefore, it is better to turn to numerous dictionaries for help ...
Direct meaning
What is a guard? First of all, this is the word. Morphological analysis suggests that, as a noun, it is distinguished by the following characteristics: common noun, inanimate, masculine, second declension. In addition, this lexical unit has not one, but several meanings. Like other polysemous words, “guard” has both direct and figurative meanings. Let's deal with the first one. Our main assistants in this matter will be the following reference editions: “Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language” edited by Dahl V., “New Dictionary of the Russian Language. Explanatory and word-formation ”edited by Efremova T. F. and“ Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian Language ”, authors Ozhegov S. I., Shvedova N. Yu.
So, to the question of what the guard is, these linguistic researchers answer unambiguously with minor amendments: a guard, a group of armed people assigned to guard something or anyone. In the meaning of “guard”, “guard” is used in such combinations as “garrison guard”, “guard of honor”, ​​“change guard”, “set guard” and others.
Secondary values
The meaning of a word that arose on the basis of the original is called figurative. We open the dictionary and find what the guard under the number “two” means - the duties of a guard, duty, condition. In the meaning of “post”, “guard” is used in the following expressions: “take someone under guard”, “carry guard”, “stand on guard”.
However, there is a meaning under the number “three” - the place of stay of the guard. Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin has lines on this subject: “It is beautifully cold in the parade, and basking in the guard.” In the lexeme that interests us, name transfers from one subject to another occurred on the basis of similarity, i.e. metaphorical transfer, and adjacency - a metonymic figurative meaning.
Cry for help
Russian writer Sergei Lukyanenko, our contemporary, says this kind of phrase: “There is a certain dark freedom that frees a person, first of all, from himself, from his conscience. If you feel emptiness and any absence of pain inside, shout “guard”, although it will be too late ... ” What kind of cry is this? It turns out that in all dictionaries there is also a meaning under the number “four” - an exclamation, a desperate cry, calling for help. This is what the famous prose writer had in mind.
Origin
The token “guards” (the meaning of the word follows) is not native Russian. It is borrowed from the Turkic and Mongolian languages, which are essentially close relatives. Russian linguist Sergei Anatolyevich Starostin claims that the Mongolian language should be considered the starting point, although repayable borrowing is possible. In other words, at first the Mongolian lexeme “karau”, “kara” (look) passed into the Turkic “kara” (look), and then it was transformed into a “guard” (sentry) and again crossed the border to the Mongols in the same form.
The lexical units of the Turks “Karak” - the eye, “Karal, Karis, Karay” - to look closely, look closely, observe, care, undoubtedly had their influence on the further transformation of the word. The data are taken from the publication "Indo-European Etymological Dictionary", created on the basis of Starostin S. A. "The Tower of Babel" research.
Synonym for the word "guard"
According to the above, the studied lexical unit is a multi-valued unit of the language. Therefore, for each value there are synonyms. Before listing them, you need to remember what a synonym is.
In linguistics, the science of language, synonyms are understood to mean such words that relate mostly to the same part of speech, have similar meanings, but differ in spelling and sound. For example, kindness - humanity, complacency, gentleness; castle - palace, fortress.
What is the synonym for the word “guard” in the meaning of “armed unit set up to guard someone or something”? There are several of them: security, guards, patrols, a breeder. Synonyms for the analyzed word in the figurative meaning - “cry, call for help” - are such tokens as “cry, help, save, sos”. To find this kind of information, another reference publication helped - the Dictionary of Russian Synonyms, authored by N. Abramov, containing more than three hundred thousand words and phrases.
Persistent expressions
The analysis of the “sentinel” token (the meaning of the word is given above) will be considered incomplete if one does not look to such a linguistic phenomenon as phraseology. Indeed, there are many phraseological turns in which structure the present lexical unit is present. Among them, the most interesting and often used are the expressions “at least shout guard”, “keep guard” and “guard board”. They are inherent in all the basic features of phraseology, namely: stability, the integrity of the combination of two or more components, as well as the presence of a single meaning that is not connected in any way with the meaning of each word included in it.
The above examples of phrases are integral, stable and have the same meanings: “at least shout guard” - a difficult, hopeless situation, “keep guard” - guard something, sit on a watch, “guard board” - an outdated turnover associated with a watchman’s duty beat it with a mallet.
Popular expression
Speaking of the guard, one cannot but mention one winged expression - “The guard is tired!” His authorship is attributed to the sailor Zheleznyak, who actively participated in the dispersal of the Constituent Assembly in January 1918. According to historical data, in the early morning, the sailor entered the spacious, brightly lit hall of the palace where the meeting was held, walked past numerous rows, boldly climbed up to the podium and firmly asked the speaker and everyone present to stop the meeting, arguing that the guard was allegedly tired. This statement was refused, shouting and violently outraged. But Zheleznyak continued to pressure, arguing that the working people did not need any chatter, and again repeated his historical phrase: “The guard was tired!” Since then, it has firmly entrenched itself in the phraseological dictionary as a phrase-symbol of armed insurrection.
Official terminology
And now is the time to turn to encyclopedias, namely, to the world-famous encyclopedic dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron, "The Great Soviet Encyclopedia" and "Military Encyclopedia". When asked what security is, a guard, they already reveal the essence of the term.
During the time of tsarist Russia, the army guards were corporal, non-commissioned officers and officers. Today in the Russian army there are other units. First of all, this is an internal or ship guard, which is engaged in the protection of objects inside a military camp or ship.
There is also a garrison guard. This is a temporary formation designed to defend garrison facilities. In addition, there are exit, temporary and honor guards. The first and second are organized to protect military goods or convicts during their transportation, i.e. outside the territory of a military unit. And, finally, the last type is a company formed to protect historical places, objects of national importance, to meet guests of honor from foreign countries and to give military honors.