guarding

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of guard.

   Two soldiers were guarding the entrance to the palace.

   Guarding the witness became the team's most urgent task.

   Note

   The -ing form does double duty. In "were guarding the entrance" it is a verb, and in "guarding the witness was urgent" it is a gerund that still takes a direct object. That object is the tell: once the word can be pluralized as guardings, it has become one of the true nouns, such as the guardrail meaning. Its range is guard's own, from keeping prisoners from escape to edging cloth with an ornamental border.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The duty of a person who watches over and protects someone or something.

   Guarding the vault fell to the most trusted members of the staff.

   Long hours of guarding left the sentries exhausted by dawn.

   Similarprotection, watch

3. 3
   noununcountable

   A protective rail or barrier fitted to prevent falls or contact with a hazard; a guardrail.

   Inspectors ordered new guarding along the stairwell after the accident.

   The lathe came with guarding that shielded the operator from flying chips.

   Similarrailing, barrier, shielding

   Note

   Builders and designers use it in two ways. As a mass noun it covers whatever barrier a site has, as in new guarding along a stairwell. In the plural it names individual rails, which James Holmes-Seidle's Barrier-Free Design (2012) sets alongside balustrades, asking that they be built so a wheelchair user's feet cannot catch between the balusters.

4. 4
   noununcountable

   Tensing of the muscles, especially of the abdomen, to limit movement and reduce irritation of inflamed organs inside the body.

   The patient showed marked guarding over the lower right abdomen during the exam.

   Guarding alerted the surgeon to possible inflammation beneath the abdominal wall.

   Note

   Doctors find it with their hands. The abdominal wall stiffens under the examiner's pressure, either voluntarily or by reflex, and it points toward conditions such as peritonitis and appendicitis. Clinicians usually treat it as a mass noun and report it by degree and place, as in marked guarding over the lower right abdomen.

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