sentinel

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a guard or watchman posted to keep lookout

   A lone sentinel stood at the gate through the night.

2. 2
   noun

   a special value in a computer program that marks a boundary, ending, or exceptional condition

   The parser used a null byte as a sentinel to mark the end of the string.

3. 3
   noun

   a sign or indicator used to warn of a risk, disease, or important change

   Public-health teams monitored sentinel cases for evidence of a wider outbreak.

4. 4
   verb

   to watch over or guard

   The ridge was sentineled by soldiers throughout the storm.

Common collocations

• stand sentinel Verb + noun

From Middle French sentinelle, from Italian sentinella, probably connected with sentire ("to feel, perceive, hear"), from Latin sentire. The computing sense keeps the idea of a watcher or marker: a value that stands guard at an important boundary.

Topics

External links

• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary
• Google Images