Reward etymology.

Is there an etymological connection to the notion of war dot dot dot? Like, the reward you get from war is a reward question?

I see where the hunch comes from— w a r sits right in the middle of re-w ar-d, and in everyday English a “reward” can be the spoils you take home after a fight.  But etymologically the two words travel on completely different highways:

Word	Early form	Oldest clear meaning	Where it came from
reward	Anglo-Norman rewarder	“look at, take notice of” → “recompense”	< Latin prefix re- “again, back” + Frankish/Proto-Germanic *ward- “watch, guard”
war	Old North-French guerre, Old English werre/wyrre	“conflict, confusion”	< Frankish *werra “strife, turmoil” (PIE root wers- “to mix up, confuse”)

Why they only 

look

 related

1. Different roots:
   ward- “watch/guard” vs. werra “confusion/strife”.
   They just happen to share the first two letters once the French hard g in regarder softened to w in Norman English.
2. Different pathways into English:
   Reward rode in with the Norman clerks after 1066; war had already entered Old English a little earlier through contact with northern French and Frankish soldiers.
3. Sense overlap is secondary:
   Medieval English did use reward for a soldier’s pay or a share of booty, but that semantic overlap happened after the word was in English; it did not drive the word’s formation.

Quick mnemonic

Reward = re- (“again”) + ward (“watch/guard”) → look back at someone’s deed → pay them back.

War = chaos/confusion (werra)—no etymological “ward” inside it.

So, tempting though it is to link war and reward, the connection is only a historical coincidence and a modern poetic pun, not a genuine family tie in the language tree.

..

Reward (verb & noun)

Stage	Form	Meaning at that stage	Notes on the form
Proto-Indo-European	*wer- “to perceive, watch, guard”	Roots many “watch/guard” words across Indo-European languages.
Proto-Germanic	*wardōną “to guard, watch” → *wardaz “guard”	Gives English ward, warden, guard, etc.
(Frankish) 6-7 c.	wardon “to guard”	Germanic loan into early Gallo-Romance.
Old French	garder “to guard, keep”	From the Frankish loan; hard g preserved on the continent.
Old French (prefixed)	regarder re- “back, again” + garder → “to look at, take heed”	Sense shift from literal “look back” to “pay attention”.
Anglo-Norman (c. 11-12 c.)	rewarder	In Norman speech the initial r + g cluster simplified to rw-, giving the spelling re-warder → rewarder.
Middle English (c. 1250 → 1350)	rewarden (v.) “to look at, take heed” → “to recompense”  reward(e) (n.) “recompense, payment in return”	First recorded as a verb; the noun is back-formed. The “recompense” sense overtakes the older “regard” sense by the 15th c.
Modern English	reward (v./n.) “give/pay (a) return for service, merit, risk, information, etc.”	Older “to look at” sense is obsolete; only the “recompense” family of meanings remains.

How the pieces fit together

1. *Germanic ward- “guard” was borrowed into early French as garder.
2. French added the common prefix re- (“back, again”), creating regarder, literally “look back/again”, hence “notice, heed”.
3. In the Norman dialect that England absorbed after 1066, the cluster r + g softened: regard- → reward-.
4. Middle-English speakers took over rewarder/rewarden first in the sense “take notice of, regard”.
5. Because one way to “regard” a person’s effort is to repay it, the meaning “recompense” developed rapidly and, by about 1400, became dominant.
6. The noun reward is a later Middle-English back-formation from the verb: “that which is given in return”.

Cognate & related English words

Word	Relationship
ward, warden, guard	Share the same Germanic root *ward- “to watch/guard”.
regard	The continental French form that kept hard g; English borrowed it directly later.
rearguard, safeguard	Formed on the same guardian root.

So, etymologically, reward is literally “look-again” → “take notice of” → “repay, recompense.”