warrant
/ˈwɔɹənt/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.24 in modern English
10
Scrabble Score
7
Letters
2
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
An order that serves as authorization; especially a voucher authorizing payment or receipt of money.
Countable
noun
An option, usually issued together with another security and with a term at issue greater than a year, to buy other securities of the issuer.
Countable
noun
A judicial writ authorizing an officer to make a search, seizure, or arrest, or to execute a judgment.
Countable
noun
A document certifying that a motor vehicle meets certain standards of mechanical soundness and safety; a warrant of fitness.
New Zealand usage; Countable
Example Sentences
- "Two years after the first appearance on the London stage by an English actress, a royal warrant of 1660 decreed that women rather than boys were to play all female roles."
- "a warrant of authenticity; a warrant for success"
- "The brazen serpent, lifted up in the centre of Israel's camp, with the publick declaration of its use, was a sufficient warrant to every man, when bitten by a fiery serpent, to look unto it. But [...] if any looked without at all expecting a cure according to the word of the Lord, they must have perished; not for want of a warrant to believe; but because they did not submit to the wisdom and authority of God, or rely on his faithfulness and mercy, in this appointed way of preservation."
- ""None. But," said Francesca, hesitatingly, "will not Lord Avonleigh need some warrant for the truth of this history?""
- "He almost gives his failings as a warrant for his greatness."
- "And also be in enactid by the auctorite aforseid that no manꝰ [man's] clerke or clerkes or other parsone or parsones do wryte or make any maner of wryting warraunt or warrauntes, upon any maner gyfte or graunte made by the Kynges Highnes or by any other his Gracys offycers as aforsaide, [...]"
Etymology
The noun is derived from Middle English warant (“protector; guard, shield, protection”), from Anglo-Norman warrant, Old Northern French 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 Old Northern French warandir, warantir, variant forms of Old French guarantir (“to protect”) (modern French garantir), a Romance formation from the noun guarant: see above.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: warant, warrant, guarant, *warand, warantir, warandir
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈwɔɹənt/
- British English: /ˈwɒɹənt/