guard of honor
1
4.1
- noun
- Formal
:
guardia de honor
- During the national memorial service, a guard of honor stood watch by the casket.
Examples
-
"Call it a guard of honor then," Baltazar urged.
Fiction book (1991) -
Let's give him a guard of honor, boys.
-
Lining the pathway was B Company, acting as guard of honour.
Fiction book (1999) -
Mussolini even sent a guard of honour.
-
A guiding hand from mum at first, as Prince Harry in formal blazer and trousers help inspect a guard of honour.
-
The visiting dignitary was welcomed with a guard of honor at the airport.
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The young cadets practiced for weeks to perform their first guard of honor at the ceremony.
Synonyms
175
4.0
A person or group who goes with someone to protect them
9
4.8
A group of soldiers who stand or march at ceremonies to show respect
How Formal
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'a ceremonial escort' is directly derivable from combining 'guard' (a group that escorts or protects) with 'of honor' indicating purpose or tribute; the construction signals a guard whose role is to show honor. This noun + of + noun pattern is cross-linguistically common and follows regular compositional semantics, so a B1 learner who knows the constituents would very likely infer the intended meaning.
Etymology
Guard of honor comes from old military practice where a guard of soldiers formed a line to show honor to an important guest or to stand beside a coffin. That's why it now means 'a ceremonial escort'.