Sentinel

How to spell sentinel

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce sentinel

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does sentinel mean?

1. nounA person or thing that stands guard and keeps watch over something.

Sentinel in a sentence

• A lone sentinel stood at the gate through the entire night.

• The old lighthouse acts as a sentinel for ships approaching the rocks.

Where does sentinel come from?

Language of origin: Italian

The word reaches English through Italian and French from the Latin verb sentire, which literally meant 'to feel, sense, or perceive'. The Italian sentinella named a watchman, the person whose whole job was to stay alert and perceive any approaching danger, and French borrowed it as sentinelle. English took it up in the late 1500s, at first in a strictly military sense for a soldier posted to keep watch. The very same Latin root sentire lies behind a crowd of familiar relatives such as 'sense', 'sentiment', and 'sentry', which is in fact a clipped cousin of sentinel itself. Knowing that the middle is built on sense words can help fix the spelling: it is senti-, the same opening as 'sentiment', followed by the soft -nel ending.

How the word is built

• senti- (from Latin sentire: to feel, perceive)
• -nel (diminutive ending via Italian sentinella)