GUARDIANSHIP

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does guardianship mean? 

• GUARDIANSHIP (noun)
  The noun GUARDIANSHIP has 2 senses:

1. attention and management implying responsibility for safety

2. the responsibility of a guardian or keeper

  Familiarity information: GUARDIANSHIP used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• GUARDIANSHIP (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Attention and management implying responsibility for safety

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

care; charge; guardianship; tutelage

Context example:

he is in the care of a bodyguard

Hypernyms ("guardianship" is a kind of...):

protection (the activity of protecting someone or something)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "guardianship"):

due care; ordinary care; reasonable care (the care that a reasonable man would exercise under the circumstances; the standard for determining legal duty)

foster care (supervised care for delinquent or neglected children usually in an institution or substitute home)

great care (more attention and consideration than is normally bestowed by prudent persons)

providence (the guardianship and control exercised by a deity)

slight care (such care as a careless or inattentive person would exercise)

Derivation:

guardian (a person who cares for persons or property)

Sense 2

Meaning:

The responsibility of a guardian or keeper

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

guardianship; keeping; safekeeping

Context example:

he left his car in my keeping

Hypernyms ("guardianship" is a kind of...):

duty; obligation; responsibility (the social force that binds you to the courses of action demanded by that force)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "guardianship"):

custody; hands ((with 'in') guardianship over; in divorce cases it is the right to house and care for and discipline a child)

Derivation:

guardian (a person who cares for persons or property)

 Context examples 

“No,” said Colonel Fitzwilliam, “that is an advantage which he must divide with me. I am joined with him in the guardianship of Miss Darcy.”

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

This lady was one of my nearest relations, an orphan from her infancy, and under the guardianship of my father.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

Poor, puny things, not fit to stir a step beyond papa's park gates: nor to go even so far without mama's permission and guardianship!

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

She could trust her own guardianship, but she could not tell what indirect or political influence might be brought to bear upon a business man.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I had been in agony to obtain some knowledge of the circumstances in which my Dora would be placed—as, in whose guardianship, and so forth—and this was something towards it.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

In acknowledgment of fealty, he proceeded to take upon himself the guardianship of his master's property.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

Another source of income to Maria were her cows, two of them, which she milked night and morning and which gained a surreptitious livelihood from vacant lots and the grass that grew on either side the public side walks, attended always by one or more of her ragged boys, whose watchful guardianship consisted chiefly in keeping their eyes out for the poundmen.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

But I cannot call that situation nothing which has the charge of all that is of the first importance to mankind, individually or collectively considered, temporally and eternally, which has the guardianship of religion and morals, and consequently of the manners which result from their influence.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

With the Judge’s sons, hunting and tramping, it had been a working partnership; with the Judge’s grandsons, a sort of pompous guardianship; and with the Judge himself, a stately and dignified friendship.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

My sister, who is more than ten years my junior, was left to the guardianship of my mother's nephew, Colonel Fitzwilliam, and myself.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)