"surveil" meaning in English

See surveil in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

IPA: /sɚˈveɪl/ [General-American], /səˈveɪl/ [Received-Pronunciation] Forms: surveils [present, singular, third-person], surveilling [participle, present], surveilled [participle, past], surveilled [past]
Rhymes: -eɪl Etymology: 1903. Back-formation from surveillance (but compare also French surveiller and the variant surveille). Etymology templates: {{back-form|en|surveillance}} Back-formation from surveillance, {{cog|fr|surveiller}} French surveiller Head templates: {{en-verb|++}} surveil (third-person singular simple present surveils, present participle surveilling, simple past and past participle surveilled)
  1. (transitive, US) To keep someone or something under surveillance. Tags: US, transitive Translations (To keep someone or something under surveillance): overvåge (Danish), valvoa (Finnish), surveiller (French), überwachen (German), megfigyel (Hungarian), vigiar (Portuguese), övervaka (Swedish)

Inflected forms

Alternative forms

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      "expansion": "Back-formation from surveillance",
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          "name": "Espionage",
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      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "The plaintiff also stresses that the store as a whole, and the customer exits especially, were closely surveilled.\nAlexandre of London v. Indem. Ins. Co., 182 F. Supp. 748, 750 (United States District Court for the District of Columbia) (1960), cited in Bryan A. Garner. A Dictionary of Modern Legal Usage (2nd ed., 2001) p. 861"
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        "To keep someone or something under surveillance."
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        "(transitive, US) To keep someone or something under surveillance."
      ],
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        "transitive"
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      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "da",
          "lang": "Danish",
          "lang_code": "da",
          "sense": "To keep someone or something under surveillance",
          "word": "overvåge"
        },
        {
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "lang_code": "fi",
          "sense": "To keep someone or something under surveillance",
          "word": "valvoa"
        },
        {
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "lang_code": "fr",
          "sense": "To keep someone or something under surveillance",
          "word": "surveiller"
        },
        {
          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "lang_code": "de",
          "sense": "To keep someone or something under surveillance",
          "word": "überwachen"
        },
        {
          "code": "hu",
          "lang": "Hungarian",
          "lang_code": "hu",
          "sense": "To keep someone or something under surveillance",
          "word": "megfigyel"
        },
        {
          "code": "pt",
          "lang": "Portuguese",
          "lang_code": "pt",
          "sense": "To keep someone or something under surveillance",
          "word": "vigiar"
        },
        {
          "code": "sv",
          "lang": "Swedish",
          "lang_code": "sv",
          "sense": "To keep someone or something under surveillance",
          "word": "övervaka"
        }
      ]
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      "ipa": "/sɚˈveɪl/",
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      "ipa": "/səˈveɪl/",
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      "rhymes": "-eɪl"
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      "form": "surveilled",
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        }
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        "To keep someone or something under surveillance."
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        "(transitive, US) To keep someone or something under surveillance."
      ],
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        "transitive"
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      "rhymes": "-eɪl"
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "da",
      "lang": "Danish",
      "lang_code": "da",
      "sense": "To keep someone or something under surveillance",
      "word": "overvåge"
    },
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "lang_code": "fi",
      "sense": "To keep someone or something under surveillance",
      "word": "valvoa"
    },
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "lang_code": "fr",
      "sense": "To keep someone or something under surveillance",
      "word": "surveiller"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "lang_code": "de",
      "sense": "To keep someone or something under surveillance",
      "word": "überwachen"
    },
    {
      "code": "hu",
      "lang": "Hungarian",
      "lang_code": "hu",
      "sense": "To keep someone or something under surveillance",
      "word": "megfigyel"
    },
    {
      "code": "pt",
      "lang": "Portuguese",
      "lang_code": "pt",
      "sense": "To keep someone or something under surveillance",
      "word": "vigiar"
    },
    {
      "code": "sv",
      "lang": "Swedish",
      "lang_code": "sv",
      "sense": "To keep someone or something under surveillance",
      "word": "övervaka"
    }
  ],
  "word": "surveil"
}

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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2026-02-14 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2026-02-01 using wiktextract (f492ef9 and 59dc20b). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

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