vanguard
Pluralvanguards
- 1The people at the very front of a group or movement, leading its advance.
Like the lead climbers who scout the route and fix the ropes for everyone who follows.
Independent filmmakers became the vanguard of a bold new storytelling style.
These young scientists saw themselves as the vanguard of a coming revolution in medicine.
Similaravant-garde, spearhead, forefront, van
Oppositerearguard
Note
Here the battlefield picture becomes a figure of speech, and it usually travels with of: people are in the vanguard of a movement, or form the vanguard of a cultural and political shift. Ben Travers bends it ironically in 1921, putting rancor and intolerance in the vanguard of primitive Christianity, so ideas can lead as well as people. Avant-garde, which comes from the same French source as the military sense, is a close synonym.
- 2The foremost units of an army or fleet, positioned at the front of an advance.
Like the lead ships of a fleet that cut through the water first.
The general sent the vanguard ahead to secure the bridge before nightfall.
Enemy cavalry clashed with the vanguard before the main force ever arrived.
Oppositerearguard
Note
Old French avant-garde, "before guard", reached English as vandgard and vantgard. Francis Bacon, writing in 1622, still spells it Vant-guard when a king divides his army into three battles. The force at the back is the rearguard, and advance guard is the plain English equivalent. Avant-garde itself once carried this military meaning too, though in that use it is now obsolete.
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Origin
Earlier English forms like vandgard and (a)vantgard came from Old French avan(t)garde, meaning 'before guard'. It is a doublet of avant-garde and vaward.