Other forms: monitoring, monitored, monitors
To monitor something is to keep watching it over time to see how it changes. A nurse monitors a patient's blood pressure through the night; a coach monitors how far you run each week; a sensor monitors the temperature in a greenhouse.
It is not the same as watching. Monitoring is deliberate and repeated, done so a change gets caught early, and it takes closely or carefully: monitored closely, monitored for side effects. The noun is a screen — a computer monitor — and it is also any device that keeps a running check, such as a heart monitor or a baby monitor on the shelf by the cot. In a British school a monitor is a pupil given a small job, handing out books or looking after the register. The person doing the watching is a monitor too, as in election monitors.
1verbmonitorTo watch and check something over a period of time to see how it changes.~48%
“Doctors will monitor her heart rate overnight.”
synonyms: track, keep tabs on
2nounscreenA screen that displays what a computer is doing.~48%
“He turned the monitor towards me so that I could read it.”
3noundeviceA device that measures something continuously and shows or records the result.~2%
“A baby monitor stood on the shelf beside the cot.”
4noungivenA person given the job of watching over something and reporting on it.~2%
“Election monitors were posted at every polling station.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 7 sentences found in the wild and placed 6 of them on a sense (1 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
Also accepted in games: track
Latin monitor meant a warner, from monere, to warn or remind. That is the heart of the word: you do not monitor a thing for the pleasure of looking, you watch so the numbers can warn you. The warship called a monitor is named after one vessel, the USS Monitor, the first of its type.
Proto-Indo-European
*men-
Latin
monitor — warner
English, today
monitor
Built from
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.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA