monitor

Any of various lizards found in Africa, South Asia, and Australasia. Monitors are generally large and carnivorous, with well-developed legs and claws and a long powerful tail that can be swung in defence. (Family Varanidae.)

Monitors include the Komodo dragon (Varanus komodoensis), the largest of all lizards, and also the slimmer Salvador's monitor (V. salvadorii), which may reach 2.5 m/8 ft. Several other monitors, such as the lace monitor (V. varius), the perentie (V. giganteus) of Australia, and the Nile monitor (V. niloticus) of Africa, are up to 2 m/6 ft long.

Monitor

British class of armoured warship, used during World War I for operations in shallow waters. They were slow and were equipped with a limited number of very large guns but had a low freeboard (the deck was designed to be close to the water) and so provided a very small target and had greater stability when firing guns.

Armed with two 12-inch guns, they were successfully used to bombard German defences on the Belgian coast and more were built, some carrying 18-inch guns. The Mersey was also sent to East Africa in 1915 to bombard the German cruiser Konigsberg in the Rufiji delta.

monitor

Output device on which a computer displays information for the benefit of the operator user – usually in the form of a graphical user interface such as Windows. The commonest type is the cathode-ray tube (CRT), which is similar to a television screen although liquid crystal display ( LCD) screens (as used by portable computers) are now becoming standard.