Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A guard, especially a soldier posted at a given spot to prevent the passage of unauthorized persons.
  • noun The duty of a sentry; watch.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A place of watch; a watch-tower.
  • noun Watch; guard: same as sentinel, 1.
  • noun One stationed as a guard: same as sentinel, 2.
  • Acting as a sentry; watching.
  • noun Same as centry, center.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Mil.) A soldier placed on guard; a sentinel.
  • noun Guard; watch, as by a sentinel.
  • noun a small house or box to cover a sentinel at his post, and shelter him from the weather.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A guard, particularly on duty at the entrance to a military base.
  • noun uncountable Sentry duty; time spent being a sentry.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a person employed to keep watch for some anticipated event

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Perhaps alteration of obsolete sentrinel, variant of sentinel.]

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