water-guardn.
/ˈwɔːtəɡɑːd/, U.S. /ˈwɔdərˌɡɑrd/, /ˈwɑdərˌɡɑrd/ 1. British. Originally: a guard deployed along the shoreline to prevent smuggling or other contravention of customs regulations. Later (usually with capital initial): a division of the Customs and Excise department, mainly responsible for the collection of customs and excise revenue from those arriving in the United Kingdom by sea or (later) by air; a member of this division (now historical). Cf. coastguard n. Now historical.
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society > law > law enforcement > law-enforcement or peace-officer > [noun] > body employed to prevent smuggling
water-guard1646
1646 Orig. Jrnls. House of Commons 21 Dec. 30 104 Resolved..That this howse doth agree with the Lords..concerninge the Water Guards.
1765 W. Hunter (title) The tidesman's and preventive officer's pocket book, explaining the general nature of importation and exportation, so far as concerns them in the execution of the water guard duty.
1772 Morning Chron. 17 Aug. The person who informs against the officers of the customs, or the water-guard, respecting the running of East-India goods, is a man of very bad character.
1828 Blackwood's Edinb. Mag. 24 552/2 A powerful preventive water-guard was placed here, to..check the extensive contraband trade of the smugglers.
1841 Irish Penny Jrnl. 6 Mar. 286/1 Keep yer voice a thrifle lower, ma bouchal, or the wather-guards might be after staling a march on ye, sharp as ye are.
1907 Picture Paragraphs 54 The latter-day smuggler is kept at bay for the most part by the Waterguard branch of the Customs Department.
1959 Times 26 Aug. 5/7 She [sc. a ship] was searched by Customs Waterguards.
1980 Times 19 Mar. 4/4 The golden portcullis..will disappear in a fortnight from the headgear worn by members of the Waterguard Service in the Isle of Man.
2011 Western Morning News (Plymouth) 4 Mar. 12 The uniformed section in the old department of Customs and Excise, in which I served for 38 years, was known as the Waterguard and its officers were called Preventive Officers.
2. North American. A waterborne body of troops responsible for defending or maintaining control of a tract of water. Now historical and rare.Chiefly with reference to the American Revolutionary War.
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society > armed hostility > armed forces > the Army > group with special function or duty > [noun] > for guard duty > others
Tilt Yard guard1528
safeguard1609
Irish guard1642
water-guard1776
forage-guard1819
tilt guard1894
1776 in Virginia Mag. Hist. & Biogr. (1977) 85 326 The Officer of the Water Guard is to Draught 13 men from his Guard.
1779 Parl. Reg. 1775–80 XIII. 35 The water-guard, which the rebels had provided to obstruct the free navigation of the river.
1868 B. J. Lossing Hudson (new ed.) 351 The ‘water-guard’ was an aquatic corps, in the pay of the revolutionary government.
1895 Ann. Rep. Surgeon-Gen. Marine-Hosp. Service U.S. 1893 II. 25 A water guard was placed at Academy Creek..to intercept persons who might seek to leave Brunswick by way of the Altamaha Canal.
1917 E. Peixotto Revol. Pilgrimage 216 Washington had forestalled him by establishing a strong water-guard on the Delaware.
3. A protective barrier or defence consisting of a tract of water. rare.
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society > armed hostility > defence > defensive work(s) > moat > [noun]
moatc1400
water walla1500
town ditchc1503
fossec1550
fossé1637
water-guard1930
1930 Times 9 Jan. 15/5 Though manor house moats were not on the scale of those around castles, they served as a useful waterguard.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, September 2015; most recently modified version published online December 2021).
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