Other forms: wardens
A warden is an official in charge of a place or of enforcing a rule. A prison warden, a traffic warden, the warden of the college.
In America the warden runs a prison; in Britain that job is governor, and warden covers a wider range — traffic warden, park warden, air raid warden, and the head of some Oxford and Cambridge colleges. A game warden protects wildlife on an estate or reserve. What the jobs share is custody of a place and the authority to enforce its rules. Note the verb ward and the phrase ward off.
1nounwardenThe official in charge of a prison.
“The warden signed off on every visit personally.”
2nounenforcesAn official who enforces rules in a particular place.
“A traffic warden had reached the car before they did.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
warden is an official in charge.
Old French guarder, to guard, comes from a Germanic root that also gave English ward. Warden and guardian are the same word arriving twice, once through Norman French with a w and once through central French with a g.
Proto-Germanic
*wardāną
Old French
guarder — to guard
Anglo-Norman
wardein
Middle English
wardein
English, today
warden
Built from
From Middle English wardein, from Anglo-Norman wardein, from warder (“to guard”), variant of Old French guarder (“to guard”) (whence modern French garder, also English guard), from Proto-Germanic wardāną; related to Old High German wartēn (“to watch”). Compare guardian, French gardien, from Old French guardian, guardein. Compare also ward and reward. a doublet of guardian.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA