different between sentinel vs vedette

English

Etymology

1570s, from Middle French sentinelle, from Old Italian sentinella (perhaps via a notion of "perceive, watch", compare Italian sentire (“to feel, hear, smell”)), from Latin senti? (“feel, perceive by the senses”). See sense.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?s?nt?n?l/

Noun

sentinel (plural sentinels)

1. A sentry, watch, or guard.
   • 1719- Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe

     They promised faithfully to bear their confinement with patience, and were very thankful that they had such good usage as to have provisions and light left them; for Friday gave them candles (such as we made ourselves) for their comfort; and they did not know but that he stood sentinel over them at the entrance.

   • 1625, Francis Bacon, Of Empire

     that princes do keep due sentinel

2. (obsolete) A private soldier.
   • 1789, John Moore, Zeluco, Valancourt 2008, p. 33:

     “I will not permit the poorest centinel to be treated with injustice.”

3. (computer science) a unique string of characters recognised by a computer program for processing in a special way; a keyword.

4. A sentinel crab.
5. (attributive, medicine, epidemiology) A sign of a health risk (e.g. a disease, an adverse effect).

Translations

Verb

sentinel (third-person singular simple present sentinels, present participle (US) sentineling or (UK) sentinelling, simple past and past participle (US) sentineled or (UK) sentinelled)

1. (transitive) To watch over as a guard.

   He sentineled the north wall.

2. (transitive) To post as guard.

   He sentineled him on the north wall.

3. (transitive) To post a guard for.

   He sentineled the north wall with just one man.

   • 1873, Harper's New Monthly Magazine (volume 46, page 562)

     The old-fashioned stoop, with its suggestive benches on either side, lay solitary and silent in the moonlight; the garden path, weedily overgrown since father's death, and sentineled here and there with ragged hollyhock, lay quiet and dew-laden […]

Translations

Anagrams

• lenients

English

Alternative forms

• vidette

Etymology

From French vedette.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /v??d?t/
• Rhymes: -?t

Noun

vedette (plural vedettes)

1. (historical, military) A sentinel, usually on horseback, stationed on the outpost of an army, to watch an enemy and give notice of danger.

Further reading

• vedette (sentry) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• vedette (cabaret) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Vedette in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)
• “vedette”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–present.

French

Etymology

Borrowed from Italian vedetta.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /v?.d?t/

Noun

vedette f (plural vedettes)

1. (slightly dated) star (celebrity)

2. (nautical) flagship
3. (lexicography) headword (word used as the title of a section)
4. (military, historical) vedette (sentry)

Descendants

• ? English: vedette
• ? Portuguese: vedeta
• ? Spanish: vedete

Derived terms

• voler la vedette

Further reading

• “vedette” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Italian

Noun

vedette f

1. plural of vedetta

Noun

vedette f (invariable)

1. star (actress)

Spanish

Noun

vedette f (plural vedettes)

1. Alternative spelling of vedete