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What word can I use for a tower where security personnel stand to keep watch on an area?

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Could we have more context? How do you plan to use the word? In a medieval novel? A modern account of prison life? – Bobbi Bennett May 18 '12 at 17:21

closed as not a real question by TimLymington, simchona♦ Aug 20 '12 at 22:17

It's difficult to tell what is being asked here. This question is ambiguous, vague, incomplete, overly broad, or rhetorical and cannot be reasonably answered in its current form. For help clarifying this question so that it can be reopened, see the FAQ.

5 Answers

up vote 7 down vote accepted

All along the watchtower

Princes kept the view

Dylan

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up vote 3 down vote

Lookout tower

Watch tower

Post

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up vote 3 down vote

Guard Tower is another useful symonym - it conveys a more spefically military meaning than watchtower or lookout post.

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up vote 2 down vote

Still not a single word, but: sentry tower

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up vote 2 down vote

Analogous to previously-suggested sentry tower, watchtower, and lookout tower is guard tower, "a general term for any military tower providing vigilance, and henceforth guarding a certain area". Some more-specific terms include barbican ("A tower at the entrance to a castle or fortified town", "A temporary wooden tower built for defensive purposes", etc.) and bartizan or bartisan ("A parapet with battlements projecting from the top of a tower in a castle or church") and of course turret.

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