Other forms: warrants, warranted, warranting
A warrant is a paper signed by a judge that lets the police do something they otherwise could not — come through your door, search your car, take you into custody. Officers on the step at six in the morning, holding up a folded sheet: that sheet is the warrant.
Two kinds get named most: a search warrant and an arrest warrant. A warrant is issued, then executed, and an outstanding warrant means the police are still looking for the person named on it. The verb is the surprise, and it has nothing to do with paper: to warrant something is to be serious enough to deserve it — the injury warranted a scan, the complaint hardly warrants a meeting. There is a plain noun sense of justification too: he acted without warrant. Keep it clear of warranty, the promise that a kettle will be replaced if it breaks.
1nounwarrantA written order from a judge or official allowing the police to search, seize or arrest.~36%
“The officers could not enter the flat until the warrant arrived.”
2verbjustifyTo be serious or important enough to deserve something.~2%
“The evidence does not warrant a second investigation.”
3nounjustificationGood reason or official authority for doing something.~60%
“He had no warrant for opening her post.”
synonyms: justification, authority
4verbstateTo state formally that something is true, and take responsibility if it is not.~2%
“The seller warrants that the machine has never been repaired.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 8 sentences found in the wild and placed 8 of them on a sense — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
warrant is a legal document.
Middle English warant meant a protector, a guard, a shield. It came through Anglo-Norman warrant from Old French guarant and garant — modern French garant — and before that from Frankish *warand, from *warjan, to fend off or thwart. The paper that protects the officer who acts on it is named for protection itself.
Frankish
*warand
Old French
guarant
fro-nor
warant
Anglo-Norman
warrant
Middle English
warant — protector; guard, shield, protection
English, today
warrant
Built from
The noun is derived from Middle English warant (“protector; guard, shield, protection”), from Anglo-Norman warrant, fro-nor warant, warand, a variant of Old French guarant, garant, garand (“assurance, guarantee; authorization, permission; protector; protection, safety”) (modern French garant), from Frankish warand, present participle of warjan (“to fend off; to stop, thwart”). The word is cognate with Old High German werento (“guarantor”). The verb is derived from Middle English warrant, waranten (“to give protection; to protect, shield; to assure, pledge, promise; to guarantee”), from Anglo-Norman warantir, warandir, warentir, and fro-nor warandir, warantir, variant forms of Old French guarantir (“to protect”) (modern French garantir), a Romance formation from the noun guarant: see above.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA