vanguard

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English avaunt garde, also vantgard and vandgard,^[2][3][4][5] borrowed from Anglo-Norman avantgarde, also vantgarde,^[6][7][8] a variant of Old French avant-garde.^[7][2][4] The OED and Dictionary.com take the immediate source as the variant avangarde.^[9][10] The English word is a shortening of the French compound,^[11][5][12] which is formed from avant (“before, in front”), from Late Latin abante,^[3][6][4] and Old French garde (“guard”), from garder (“to guard”).^[3][2] An earlier English form, vaunt-ward, from about 1300, probably came from Anglo-Norman too and survives as vaward.^[7][9] The same French word was borrowed again much later as avant-garde.^[13] The French compound has equivalents in Italian vanguardia, Spanish vanguardia and Portuguese vanguarda.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The foremost division of an army: 1487, in a manuscript of Barbour's Bruce.^[9] Barnhart finds vaunt garde probably about 1450,^[4] and Etymonline dates it to the mid-15th century.^[7] In Anglo-Norman the word is recorded from 1194–99 for the front part of an advancing army.^[8]

Semantic evolution

Johnson (1755) defined it as "the front, or first line of the army", quoting Bacon and Milton.^[14] The figurative sense, the people at the forefront of a movement or field, is quoted from 1833, in Carlyle's Sartor Resartus,^[9] and Merriam-Webster applies it to the leaders of thought, taste or opinion, in art, letters or politics.^[2] In Communist theory, after Lenin, the vanguard was the party elite that was to organize the masses for revolution, recorded in English from 1928 in a translation of Stalin.^[9] In Northern Ireland Vanguard was the name of a party formed in 1972 as a breakaway from Ulster Unionism.^[9] It was also the name of a variety of peach (1786).^[9] The clipped form van has the same military sense.^[12][2]

Timeline

• c. 1450 – vaunt garde (Barnhart).^[4]
• 1487 – the foremost division of an army.^[9]
• 1503 – the spelling vanguarde.^[4]
• 1786 – a variety of peach.^[9]
• 1833 – figurative, the forefront of a movement.^[9]
• 1928 – the party elite in Communist theory.^[9]
• 1972 – a political party in Northern Ireland.^[9]

Meanings

Noun

1. The leading units of an army or fleet; the van: The vanguard crossed the river before dawn.^{[15][2][9][12]}
2. The leading position in a movement or field, or the people who hold it: Her studio was in the vanguard of digital animation.^[15][2][9]
3. In Communist theory, the party elite that leads the masses to revolution.^[9]

Word family

• vanguardism
• vanguardist
• van

Related words

• advance
• advance guard
• avant
• avaunt
• avant-garde
• guard
• rearguard
• vaward

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
3. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
8. ^ a b Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
11. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
14. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
15. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins