Vocabulary: invigilator

Today’s word is invi­gil­ator, mean­ing “one who watches over stu­dents at an exam­in­a­tion”. I first encountered this word on the Real Prop­erty exam notice, ini­tially put­ting it down to Pro­fessor Peter Butt’s sense of humour. The word has a cer­tain Death Eater ring to it doesn’t it?

Alas, it’s a real word – although the OED tells me that invi­gil­ate used to mean “watch care­fully” in a more gen­eral sense.

Related posts:

1. Carl Sagan: “A Glor­i­ous Dawn”
2. Lib­rary com­puters flawed
3. Prop­erty in the com­mon law