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monitor

1. One who admonishes; one who warns of faults, informs of duty, or gives advice and instruction by way of reproof or caution. You need not be a monitor to the king. (bacon)

2. Hence, specifically, a pupil selected to look to the school in the absence of the instructor, to notice the absence or faults of the scholars, or to instruct a division or class.

3. (Science: zoology) Any large old world lizard of the genus varanus; especially, the egyptian species (V. Niloticus), which is useful because it devours the eggs and young of the crocodile. It is sometimes five or six feet long.

4. [So called from the name given by Captain Ericson, its designer, to the first ship of the kind] An ironclad war vessel, very low in the water, and having one or more heavily-armored revolving turrets, carrying heavy guns.

5. (Science: machinery) 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 successively the several tools in holds into proper position for cutting. Monitor top, the raised central portion, or clearstory, of a car roof, having low windows along its sides.

Origin: L, fr. Monere. See Monition, and cf. Mentor.