Late Middle English: French, from garder 'to keep' + robe 'robe, dress'; compare with wardrobe.

• guard from Late Middle English:

  An Old Germanic element meaning ‘to watch, guard’ lies behind both guard and ward. Ward came into English from Old English weard ‘watchman, guard’. The sense ‘child protected by a guardian’ is late Middle English, and the sense of a hospital ward, where you are watched over by nurses or wardens, is mid 18th. Meanwhile, Germanic-speaking Franks had taken over areas of Europe that were mainly Romance speaking, and introduced the word into Romance. The w became a g(u) and the word became g(u)arde in Old French from which the g- forms were introduced into English. The g- and w- forms (found as alternatives in other words in modern French and English, as in the name William or Guillaume) are also found in warden (Middle English) and guardian (Late Middle English). Wardrobe (Late Middle English), a place where you look after clothes, has an alternative garderobe (Middle English). These were once interchangeable. However, garderobe is now mainly restricted to a term for a medieval lavatory. Wardrobe could have this sense in the past, for both words developed the sense of a small room where you could be private, and from there somewhere you could do something in private (compare privy under private).