Watched

How to spell watched

7 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce watched

What does watched mean?

1. verbLooked at or observed something attentively over a period of time.

Watched in a sentence

• She watched the documentary twice before the exam.

• The security guard watched the monitors all night.

Where does watched come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is the past tense of the verb 'watch', which descends from the Old English wæccan, meaning 'to be awake' or 'to keep guard'. That early sense of staying awake on purpose is the key to the whole family: a night-time guard who refused to sleep was literally 'watching', and the noun 'watch' for a period of guard duty (and later the timepiece that measured it) grew from the same root. Wæccan is closely related to wacian 'to be awake' and shares deep ancestry with the modern words 'wake' and 'awake'. Over the medieval period the meaning broadened from guarding to the everyday act of looking attentively at something. The spelling keeps the simple regular '-ed' ending, so the only mild trap is remembering the silent 't' in the 'tch' cluster carried over from 'watch'.

How the word is built

• watch (Old English wæccan: to keep awake, guard)
• -ed (past tense suffix)