a guarding or (concretely guard) the act the parson; figuratively the place the condition or (specifically) the time (as a division of day or night) literally or figuratively

1. guard, watch

a. a watching, keeping watch

1. to keep watch

b. persons keeping watch, a guard, sentinels

c. of the place where captives are kept, a prison

d. of the time (of night) during which guard was kept, a watch i.e. a period of time during which part of the guard was on duty, and at the end of which others relieved them. As the earlier Greeks divided the night commonly into three parts, so, previous to the exile, the Israelites also had three watches in a night; subsequently, however, after they became subject to the Romans, they adopted the Roman custom of dividing the night into four watches