watch

noun watches

1. A portable or wearable timepiece. Meronyms: watch face, watch receiver, watchspring, watch battery, watchstrap, watch strap, watchband
2. The act of guarding and observing someone or something. shepherds keeping watch by night
3. A particular time period when guarding is kept. The second watch of the night began at midnight.
4. A period of wakefulness between the two sleeps of a biphasic sleep pattern (the dead sleep or first sleep and morning sleep or second sleep): the first waking.
5. A person or group of people who guard. The watch stopped the travelers at the city gates.
6. The post or office of a watchman; also, the place where a watchman is posted, or where a guard is kept. He upbraids Iago, that he made him Brave me upon the watch.
7. A group of sailors and officers aboard a ship or shore station with a common period of duty: starboard watch, port watch.
8. A period of time on duty, usually four hours in length; the officers and crew who tend the working of a vessel during the same watch. (FM 55–501).
9. The act of seeing, or viewing, for a period of time. A quick watch of Stanley Kubrick's Clockwork Orange sends this reality home fast. Amoral, vacuous, cold-blooded, unsympathetic, and chillingly evil describe only parts of the story.
10. collective, rare A group of nightingales. sirens were singing like a watch of nightingales

verb watches · watching · watched · watch

1. ambitransitive To look at, see, or view for a period of time. Watching the clock will not make time go faster.
2. transitive To observe over a period of time; to notice or pay attention. Watch this!
3. transitive To mind, attend, or guard. Please watch my suitcase for a minute.
4. transitive To be wary or cautious of. You should watch that guy. He has a reputation for lying.
5. transitive To attend to dangers to or regarding. watch your head; watch your step
6. intransitive To remain awake with a sick or dying person; to maintain a vigil. At the funeralls in Yorkeshire, to this day, they continue the custome of watching & sitting-up all night till the body is interred.
7. intransitive To be vigilant or on one's guard. For some must watch, while some must sleep: So runs the world away.
8. intransitive To act as a lookout. "[…] Scarcely a night passes without the light showing, and there's no doubt that the water runs. We've put copying ink on the door handles and the taps and got into it ourselves until there isn't a man about the place that you couldn't implicate." "Has anyone watched up there?"
9. of a buoy To serve the purpose of a watchman by floating properly in its place.
10. intransitive, obsolete To be awake. So on the morne Sir Trystram, Sir Gareth and Sir Dynadan arose early and went unto Sir Palomydes chambir, and there they founde hym faste aslepe, for he had all nyght wacched […]
11. obsolete, transitive To be on the lookout for; to wait for expectantly. [S]he had reason to dread that her husband had formed a very criminal project of being revenged on Zeluco, and watched an opportunity of putting it in execution.

Opposite: ignore