Monitor

The word monitor derives from the Latin word for warner or warning. Depending on context, it may have one of the following meanings:

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When used as a verb, to monitor can mean:

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• To watch a situation in order to see how it changes over time.
• To listen to or watch other people's communications, such as phone calls

In the context of electronic technology, a monitor can be:

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• A computer display or screen
• A hardware device that measures electrical events such as pulses or voltage levels in a digital computer.
• A medical monitor
• A speaker used on stage or in a studio to enable musicians to hear what is being recorded or broadcasted

In the context of computer software, a monitor can be:

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• A small interactive bootstrap program or machine code debugger
• An execution profiler
• A programming technique for managing access of parallel processes to shared resources while ensuring mutual exclusion: Monitor (synchronization)

When referring to persons, monitor can mean:

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• A Hall monitor, one who patrols the hall of a school.
• A Prefect (empowered schoolboy or schoolgirl) in certain British schools, especially public schools

When referring to military ships, monitor can mean:

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• USS Monitor, the ironclad warship of the American civil war.
• A monitor is a type of ship based on the USS Monitor and built by several navies for coastal defence in the 1860s and 1870s. It reappeared in a different form during the First World War and lasted until the end of the Second World War
• A river monitor, the strongest type of river warships.

Other meanings:

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• A popular NBC radio program which aired from 1955 to 1975.
• Monitor is a British organisation that regulates the NHS Foundation Trusts.
• Two characters from the DC Comics limited comic book series, Crisis on Infinite Earths.
• The AI that is the caretaker of Halo (better known as 343 Guilty Spark).
• A Polish 18th century newspaper, Monitor (newspaper)
• A device for channeling water under high pressure against a surface, also known as a water cannon, was used in hydrolic mining in California.
• Monitor lizards are a family of large tropical lizards (Varanidae).