SENTRY

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does sentry mean? 

• SENTRY (noun)
  The noun SENTRY has 1 sense:

1. a person employed to keep watch for some anticipated event

  Familiarity information: SENTRY used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• SENTRY (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A person employed to keep watch for some anticipated event

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

lookout; lookout man; picket; scout; sentinel; sentry; spotter; watch

Hypernyms ("sentry" is a kind of...):

security guard; watcher; watchman (a guard who keeps watch)

 Context examples 

The first was empty, but at the head of the second stood a peasant sentry, who started off at the sight of them, yelling loudly to his comrades.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The two sentries were shot down, and so was a corporal who came running to see what was the matter.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

There’s St. James’s, the big, dingy place with the clock, and the two red-coated sentries before it.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I will confess that I was far too much taken up with what was going on to be of the slightest use as sentry; indeed, I had already deserted my eastern loophole and crept up behind the captain, who had now seated himself on the threshold, with his elbows on his knees, his head in his hands, and his eyes fixed on the water as it bubbled out of the old iron kettle in the sand.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

This they made me swear to do, and then they unbound me, only fastening one of my legs with a chain, near my bed, and placed a sentry at my door with his piece charged, who was commanded to shoot me dead if I attempted my liberty.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

Here I lay down, near a cannon; and, happy in the society of the sentry's footsteps, though he knew no more of my being above him than the boys at Salem House had known of my lying by the wall, slept soundly until morning.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Alleyne and Aylward sprang from their horses, and flew at the two sentries, who were disarmed and beaten down in an instant by so furious and unexpected an attack.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I was carried to a convenient lodging with a sentry placed at the door; however, I had the liberty of a large garden, and was treated with humanity enough, being maintained all the time at the king’s charge.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

The three fellows still abroad upon the island did not greatly trouble us; a single sentry on the shoulder of the hill was sufficient to ensure us against any sudden onslaught, and we thought, besides, they had had more than enough of fighting.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

My way ran down a dried-up watercourse, which we hoped would screen me from the enemy’s sentries; but as I crept round the corner of it I walked right into six of them, who were crouching down in the dark waiting for me.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)