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monitor.

Someone who watches over something; a person in charge of something or someone.

7 characters3 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈmɒn.ɪ.tə/Received-Pronunciation/ˈmɑ.nɪ.tɚ/General-American, cot-caught-merger, dialectal[ˈmɑ.nɪ.ɾɚ]General-American, cot-caught-merger, dialectal/ˈmɑ.nə.tɚ/General-American, cot-caught-merger, dialectal
  1. Someone who watches over something; a person in charge of something or someone.

    The camp monitors look after the children during the night, when the teachers are asleep.
  2. A device that detects and informs on the presence, quantity, etc., of something.

  3. A device similar to a television set used as to give a graphical display of the output from a computer.

    The information flashed up on the monitor.
  4. A studio monitor or loudspeaker.

  5. A program for viewing and editing.

    a machine code monitor
  6. The command line interface of an operating system.

    dated
  7. A student leader in a class.

    Hong-Kong · Singapore · archaic
  8. A relatively small armored warship with only one or two turrets (but often carrying unusually large guns for a warship of its size), usually designed for shore bombardment or riverine warfare rather than open-ocean combat.

  9. A monitor lizard (Varanus spp. and extinct relatives in family Varanidae).

  10. A tool holder, as for a lathe, shaped like a low turret, and capable of being revolved on a vertical pivot so as to bring several tools successively into position.

  11. A monitor nozzle.

  12. One who admonishes; one who warns of faults, informs of duty, or gives advice and instruction by way of reproof or caution.

    obsolete
  13. An ironclad warship with a low freeboard and a rotating turret.

    archaic
  14. A modern shallow-draft warship for coastal bombardment.

Where this word comes from

From Latin monitor (“warner”), from perfect passive participle monitus (“warning”), from verb monere (“to warn, admonish, remind”). Warship sense is from USS Monitor, the first ship of this type.

verb/ˈmɒn.ɪ.tə/Received-Pronunciation/ˈmɑ.nɪ.tɚ/General-American, cot-caught-merger, dialectal[ˈmɑ.nɪ.ɾɚ]General-American, cot-caught-merger, dialectal/ˈmɑ.nə.tɚ/General-American, cot-caught-merger, dialectal
  1. To watch over; to guard.

    transitive
Where this word comes from

From Latin monitor (“warner”), from perfect passive participle monitus (“warning”), from verb monere (“to warn, admonish, remind”). Warship sense is from USS Monitor, the first ship of this type.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.