sentry

• centry, sentrie, sentery (all obsolete)

From earlier sentrie, sentery, of uncertain origin. Perhaps an alteration of sentinel or sanctuary; or perhaps from Old French senteret (“a path”), diminutive of sentier, from Medieval Latin semitarius (“a path”).

• enPR: sĕnʹtrē, IPA^(key): /ˈsɛntɹi/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Hyphenation: sen‧try
• Rhymes: -ɛntɹi
• Homophone: century (for some speakers)

sentry (plural sentries)

1. A guard, particularly on duty at the entrance to a military base.
   • 2019, Maaza Mengiste, The Shadow King, Canongate Books (2020), page 213:

     Additional sentries are keeping watch for any signs of an ambush.

2. (uncountable) Sentry duty; time spent being a sentry.
3. (nautical) A form of drag to be towed underwater, which on striking bottom is upset and rises to the surface.
4. A watchtower.
5. An animal like a marmot tasked with alerting the pack to danger.

• (nautical drag): kite

• sentinel

• Tyners