/rɪˈɡɑːrd/
[verb] To look at someone or something carefully, or to think about them in a particular way. It can also mean to have a certain opinion or feeling about a person or thing.
To 'regard' someone originally meant to guard them with your eyes — watching was protecting.
The story of 'regard' begins with a surprisingly physical act: the act of keeping watch. The word comes from the Old French 'regarder', meaning 'to look at' or 'to pay attention to', which was itself built from two parts — the prefix 're-', used here as an intensifier meaning 'back' or 'thoroughly', and 'garder', meaning 'to guard' or 'to keep'. This Old French verb 'garder' descended from a Proto-Germanic root, '*wardōn', meaning 'to watch over' or 'to take care of'. So at its deepest root, to regard something was to stand guard over it with your eyes.
The Germanic root '*wardōn' also gave Old English its word 'weardian', meaning 'to guard', which eventually became the modern English 'ward' and 'warden'. You can also trace it into Old High German 'wartēn', and further into Old Norse 'varða', all carrying the same meaning of watchful protection. When the Normans brought Old French into England after 1066, they brought 'regarder' with them, and English speakers began using 'regard' in the late 14th century, first simply meaning 'to look at' with focused, deliberate attention.
What makes the journey of this word so interesting is how it shifted from the physical to the mental. In Middle English, 'regard' still carried a strong sense of visual attention — you regarded a painting, a landscape, a stranger. But over time, the act of looking became a metaphor for the act of thinking. To look carefully at something was, in the human mind, connected to evaluating it, forming an opinion about it. By the 15th and 16th centuries, 'regard' had taken on the meaning of holding a view or opinion about someone — 'I regard him as a friend' means not that you are staring at him, but that you think of him in a certain way.
The word also developed a strong emotional dimension. 'Regard' began to mean respect, esteem, or affection — a warm, evaluative attention given to a person. When someone says 'I hold her in high regard', they are not describing a physical gaze but a feeling of deep respect. This is the same sense used in letter-writing conventions, where 'kind regards' at the end of a message carries the idea of sending one's warm attention and good feelings toward the recipient. The word quietly accumulated layers of care and respect on top of its original visual meaning.
The related noun 'guard', which shares the same Old French root 'garder', followed a parallel path into English — Old French 'garde' → Middle English 'garde' → English 'guard'. Similarly, 'ward' came through Old English 'weard' from that same Proto-Germanic root, and 'reward' arrived via Old French 're-' plus 'warder', meaning to watch back or look after in return. These words form a family scattered across English: 'guard', 'ward', 'warden', 'reward', 'regard' — all children of the idea that to watch carefully is the first act of care.
Today, 'regard' lives comfortably in both formal and informal English. We use it to express opinions, to describe how we see others, and to send warmth in closing a letter. It has grown far beyond its watchful origins, yet the essential idea — that paying close attention to something is a form of valuing it — has never really left the word at all.