monitor

• monitour (obsolete)

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.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈmɒn.ɪ.tə/

  • Audio (Southern England):

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• (lot–cloth split, US) IPA^(key): /ˈmɔn.ɪ.tɚ/, /ˈmɔn.ə.tɚ/
• (cot–caught merger, General American, dialects of Canada) IPA^(key): /ˈmɑ.nɪ.tɚ/, [ˈmɑ.nɪ.ɾɚ], /ˈmɑ.nə.tɚ/, [ˈmɑ.nə.ɾɚ]

  • Audio (Texas):

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• (cot–caught merger, Canada, dialects of the US) IPA^(key): /ˈmɒn.ɪ.tɚ/, [ˈmɒn.ɪ.ɾɚ]
• (General Australian) IPA^(key): /ˈmɔn.ɪ.tə/, [ˈmɔn.ɪ.ɾə]
• (New Zealand) IPA^(key): /ˈmɒn.ə.tə/, [ˈmɔ̟n.ə.ɾə]

monitor (plural monitors)

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.

   • 1829, Charles Sprague, To My Cigar:

     And oft, mild friend, to me thou art
     A monitor, though still;
     Thou speak'st a lesson to my heart,
     Beyond the preacher's skill.

2. A device that detects and informs on the presence, quantity, etc., of something.
4. (computing) 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.

5. A studio monitor or loudspeaker.
6. (computing) A program for viewing and editing.

   a machine code monitor

7. (computing, dated) The command line interface of an operating system.
8. (Hong Kong, Singapore, archaic in British) A student leader in a class.
   • 1871, Henry William Pullen, The Fight at Dame Europa's School:

     So, as she did not like the masters to be prying about the play-ground out of school, she chose from among the biggest and most trustworthy of her pupils five monitors, who had authority over the rest of the Boys, and kept the unruly ones in order.

   • 1881, Talbot Baines Reed, chapter X, in The Fifth Form at St. Dominic's:

     But it was not so—at least, not always—for though they fell out among themselves, they united their forces against the common enemy—the monitors!

   • (Can we date this quote?), Pearl Poon, Class Monitor Election‎^[1], Hong Kong ICAC Comics:

     He learned that a monitor should assist the teachers in distributing worksheets, maintaining class discipline, helping classmates in need and so on.

10. (nautical) 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. [from 1862]
11. A monitor lizard (Varanus spp. and extinct relatives in family Varanidae).
12. (engineering) 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.
13. A monitor nozzle.
14. (obsolete) One who admonishes; one who warns of faults, informs of duty, or gives advice and instruction by way of reproof or caution.
    • c. 1620, Francis Bacon, letter of advice to Sir George Villiers

      You need not be a monitor to your gracious master the king.

    • 1873, Gardeners Chronicle & New Horticulturist, page 119:

      There has been no lack of other monitors — a ticklish haysel, a flooded harvest all through the north […]

15. (archaic) An ironclad.

• → Thai: มอนิเตอร์ (mɔɔ-ní-dtəə)

• display
• screen
• VDU

monitor (third-person singular simple present monitors, present participle monitoring, simple past and past participle monitored)

1. (transitive) To watch over; to guard.
   • 1993, H. Srinivasan, Prevention of Disabilities in Patients with Leprosy: A Practical Guide‎^[2], World Health Organization, page 134:

     Monitoring refers to keeping a watch over patients to ensure that they are practising what they have learnt about disability prevention correctly.

   • 1997, Bekir Onursal, Surhid P. Gautam, Vehicular Air Pollution: Experiences from Seven Latin American Urban Centers‎^[3], volumes 23-373, page 239:

     During July 1989-February 1990 ambient SO₂, was monitored using a mobile station in the residential-commercial neighborhood of Copacabana.

   • 2002, Mark Baker, Garry Smith, GridRM: A Resource Monitoring Architecture for the Grid, in Manish Parashar (editor), Grid Computing - GRID 2002: Third International Workshop, Springer, LNCS 2536, page 268,

     A wide-area distributed system such as a Grid requires that a broad range of data be monitored and collected for a variety of tasks such as fault detection and performance monitoring, analysis, prediction and tuning.

   • 2023 July 7, “UN says climate change ‘out of control’ after likely hottest week on record”, in The Guardian‎^[4], →ISSN:

     The NOAA monitors global temperatures and records on a monthly and an annual basis, not daily. […] Various parts of the world have been experiencing heatwaves and on Thursday the EU’s climate monitoring service said the world had experienced its hottest June on record last month.

• oversee, supervise, track

• “monitor”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “monitor”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.

• montoir, tromino

Borrowed from Latin monitōrem (“warner”).

• IPA^(key): (Central) [mu.niˈto]
• IPA^(key): (Balearic) [mo.niˈto]
• IPA^(key): (Valencia) [mo.niˈtoɾ]

monitor m (plural monitors)

1. monitor, someone who watches
2. teacher, educator

   Synonym: educador

3. (computing) monitor, display screen
4. (nautical) monitor (type of warship)

• monitorar

• “monitor”, in Diccionari de la llengua catalana [Dictionary of the Catalan Language] (in Catalan), second edition, Institute of Catalan Studies [Catalan: Institut d'Estudis Catalans], April 2007
• “monitor”, in Gran Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana, Grup Enciclopèdia Catalana, 2025
• “monitor” in Diccionari normatiu valencià, Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua.
• “monitor” in Diccionari català-valencià-balear, Antoni Maria Alcover and Francesc de Borja Moll, 1962.

• IPA^(key): [ˈmonɪtor]

monitor m inan

1. monitor (computer display)

Borrowed from English monitor, from Latin monitor.

• IPA^(key): /ˈmoː.niˌtɔr/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Hyphenation: mo‧ni‧tor

monitor m (plural monitors or monitoren, diminutive monitortje n)

1. screen, display
2. (audio) speaker boxes for monitoring sound, on stage directed at musicians or aimed at a sound engineer in a studio
3. (historical) monitor (low-lying ironclad)
4. (historical) monitor (small coastal warship specialised in shore bombardment)

• rammonitor

• Audio:

  (file)

monitor m (plural monitors)

1. (nautical, military) monitor (warship)

• “monitor”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

From Latin monitor (“warner”), from perfect passive participle monitus (“warning”), from verb monere (“to warn, admonish, remind”).^[1]

• IPA^(key): [ˈmonitor]
• Hyphenation: mo‧ni‧tor
• Rhymes: -or

monitor (plural monitorok)

1. (computer hardware) monitor (a device similar to a television set used as to give a graphical display of the output from a computer)

• monitor in Géza Bárczi, László Országh, et al., editors, A magyar nyelv értelmező szótára [The Explanatory Dictionary of the Hungarian Language] (ÉrtSz.), Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1959–1962. Fifth ed., 1992: →ISBN.

Borrowed from English monitor, from Latin monitor (“warner”), from perfect passive participle monitus (“warning”), from verb monere (“to warn, admonish, remind”).

• (Standard Indonesian) IPA^(key): /moˈnitor/ [moˈni.t̪ɔr]
• Rhymes: -itor
• Syllabification: mo‧ni‧tor

monitor (plural monitor-monitor)

1. monitor
   1. someone who watches over something

      Synonym: (more common) pemantau

   2. (computing) computer display
   3. a device that detects and informs on the presence, quantity, etc., of something
      1. (medicine) vital signs monitor
   4. (engineering) a tool holder, as for a lathe, shaped like a low turret
      1. monitor nozzle
2. monitoring; surveillance or continuous or regular observation

   Synonyms: pemantauan, pemonitoran, (colloquial) monitoring

monitor

1. to monitor; basic/imperative/informal of memonitor

   Synonym: pantau

• “monitor” in Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia, Jakarta: Agency for Language Development and Cultivation – Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology of the Republic of Indonesia, 2016.

Borrowed from English monitor.

• IPA^(key): /ˈmɔ.ni.tor/^[1]
• Rhymes: -ɔnitor
• Hyphenation: mò‧ni‧tor

monitor m (invariable)

1. monitor (apparatus)

• rimonto, rimontò

From moneō +‎ -tor. Compare Ancient Greek Μέντωρ (Méntōr, “Mentor”) and Sanskrit मन्तृ (mantṛ, “advisor, counselor”).

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [ˈmɔ.nɪ.tɔr]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [ˈmɔː.ni.t̪or]

monitor m (genitive monitōris); third declension

1. counselor, preceptor
2. prompter, warner

Third-declension noun.

• Catalan: monitor
• English: monitor
• German: Monitor
• Italian: monitore
• Portuguese: monitor
• Russian: монито́р (monitór)
• Spanish: monitor
• Translingual: Monitor

• “monitor”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “monitor”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers

From English monitor, from Latin monitor.

monitor (Jawi spelling مونيتور, plural monitor-monitor)

1. (computing) monitor (computer display)
   • 2015 August 24, Nurhayati Abllah, “Monitor lengkung Acer begitu 'trendy' [The Acer curved monitor is so 'trendy']”, in Berita Harian‎^[5]:

     Luaran monitor model juga kelihatan lebih premium dan menarik dengan panel belakang berkilat dengan kemasan aluminium futuristik sebagai penegak.

     The exterior of the monitor model also appears more premium and attractive, featuring a glossy back panel with futuristic aluminum casing as a stand.

• pengawas

• “monitor” in Pusat Rujukan Persuratan Melayu | Malay Literary Reference Centre, Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, 2017.

Learned borrowing from Latin monitor.

• IPA^(key): /mɔˈɲi.tɔr/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -itɔr
• Syllabification: mo‧ni‧tor
• Homophone: Monitor

monitor m inan (related adjective monitorowy)

2. (computer hardware) monitor, screen (output device that displays information in pictorial or textual form)

   Hypernym: urządzenie

3. official magazine or news program having the word “monitor” in the title in which resolutions and orders of state authorities are published

   Hypernym: czasopismo

5. (military) monitor (one of a class of relatively small armored warships 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)

   Hypernym: okręt

• monitor in Wielki słownik języka polskiego, Instytut Języka Polskiego PAN
• monitor in Polish dictionaries at PWN
• monitor in PWN's encyclopedia

• Hyphenation: mo‧ni‧tor

Learned borrowing from Latin monitōrem.

monitor m (plural monitores, feminine monitora, feminine plural monitoras)

1. monitor (someone who watches over something)
2. monitor lizard (lizard of the genus Varanus)

   Synonyms: varano, lagarto-monitor

Borrowed from English monitor.

monitor m (plural monitores)

1. (computing) monitor (computer display)

   Synonyms: ecrã, (Brazil) tela

Borrowed from French monitor.

monitor n (plural monitoare)

1. monitor

Borrowed from English monitor.

• IPA^(key): /mǒnitor/
• Hyphenation: mo‧ni‧tor

mònitor m inan (Cyrillic spelling мо̀нитор)

1. monitor (computing, etc.)

Learned borrowing from Latin monitor.

• IPA^(key): /moniˈtoɾ/ [mo.niˈt̪oɾ]

• Audio (Colombia):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -oɾ
• Syllabification: mo‧ni‧tor

monitor m (plural monitores)

1. monitor (electronic device)

   Synonym: pantalla

monitor m (plural monitores, feminine monitora, feminine plural monitoras)

1. instructor, monitor
2. coach, trainer

   Synonym: entrenador

• “monitor”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 10 December 2024