guardrail

noun

guard·​rail ˈgärd-ˌrāl 

: a railing guarding usually against danger

especially : a barrier placed along the edge of a highway at dangerous points

Synonyms of guardrail

• railing
• rail

Examples of guardrail in a Sentence

the car ran off the road, but fortunately only hit the guardrail

Recent Examples on the Web

Studios or brands can subscribe to a number of different tiers, with the enterprise tier, which Grobler says meets industry standard in terms of AI guardrails, costing $1,200 per month. —Max Goldbart, Deadline, 9 Apr. 2026

Authorities said Ponder’s car crashed through a guardrail and hit an electrical pole. —Brian Niemietz, New York Daily News, 7 Apr. 2026

On the question of guardrails, Valentine pointed to a recent incident in which Anthropic inadvertently exposed internal source code for its Claude coding tool, offering a rare public glimpse into how frontier AI labs protect their models. —Sheryl Estrada, Fortune, 7 Apr. 2026

The car went through a guardrail, hit an electrical line pole, rolled down an embankment and caught fire. —Los Angeles Times, 7 Apr. 2026

Word History

First Known Use

1860, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for guardrail

• airmail
• assail
• avail
• bewail
• blackmail
• cattail
• cocktail
• curtail
• derail
• detail
• dovetail
• email

Kids Definition

guardrail

noun

guard·​rail ˈgär-ˌdrāl 

: a protective railing placed along dangerous areas (as of a road)