The Word of the Day — sentinel

Word of the Day for Saturday, December 6, 2008

sentinel \SEN-tuhn-uhl\, noun, verb:

1. to stand guard and watch
2. a person stationed to keep watch and guard

Sometimes the puppy barked when a customer came in, taking on the sentinel’s role that no one had assigned him. Eliseo Alberto, Caracol Beach

At dawn on June 18, as the bell tolls, the sentinel on the East Tower sees a yellowish cloud in the far distance - the dust kicked up by their horses.
— Lewis Jones, Previous conquests,” review of The Siege by Ismail Kadare (translated by David Bellos), Daily Telegraph,  5/17/2008

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by 1579, from Middle French sentinelle, from Italian sentinella, perhaps (from a notion of “perceive, watch”), from sentire “to hear, perceive,” from Latin senire “feel”

Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for sentinel