sentinel

About 1.61 uses per million words.

Meaning

1. noun A sentry, watch, or guard.
2. noun A private soldier.
3. noun A unique value recognised by a computer program for processing in a special way, or marking the end of a set of data.

   The <xmp> tag is a sentinel that suspends web-page processing and displays the subsequent text literally

4. noun A sentinel crab.
5. noun A sign of a health risk (e.g. a disease, an adverse effect).

   Sentinel animals can be used to explore endemic diseases.

6. verb To watch over as a guard.

   He sentineled the north wall.

7. verb To post a guard for.

   He sentineled the north wall with just one man.

Similar words

sentry lookout man scout picket lookout watch guard watchman custodian monitoring

Often followed by

of on at node and lymph was in to

Word family

sentineled sentineling sentinelled sentinelling sentinels