observer
Americannoun
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someone or something that observes.
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a delegate to an assembly or gathering, who is sent to observe and report but not to take part officially in its activities.
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U.S. Air Force.
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a member of an aircrew, other than the pilot, holding an aeronautical rating.
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a person who maintains observation in an aircraft during flight.
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Also called air observer,. Also called aircraft observer. U.S. Army. a person who serves in an aircraft as a reconnoiterer and directs artillery fire.
noun
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a person or thing that observes
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a person who attends a conference solely to note the proceedings
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a person trained to identify aircraft, esp, formerly, a member of an aircrew
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of observer
Explanation
An observer is someone who watches or pays attention to something — if you're an observer of current events, you probably watch the news and read the newspaper every day to keep up with what's going on. You can be an accidental observer of something, like pedestrians who happen to witness an accident and become observers of it. Another kind of observer is one who notices things deliberately, like political observers who watch and comment on various events. Many newspapers once had the word observer in their names, from this second sense of the word. The verb observe has a Latin root, observare, which means "watch over, note, heed, or attend to."
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Film critic Jenna Ipcar has described how “a perfect comedy duo will make their audience feel like a lucky participant instead of just a passive observer, a welcome guest in a secret world.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 25, 2026
In that scenario, a hypothetical observer selectively sorts hot and cold particles, apparently reducing entropy and challenging the second law of thermodynamics, which states that entropy naturally increases or remains constant.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 3, 2026
But, as another longtime observer of Collins in Maine politics put it to me, Collins “has a remarkable way of using ‘I’ more than ‘we’ in statements.”
From Slate ● Jun. 16, 2026
Chief EU observer Annalisa Corrado urged candidates to "wait patiently for the official proclamation of the results."
From Barron's ● Jun. 9, 2026
"I am an observer," I told myself, as I watched Doreen being handed into the room by the blond boy to another man, who was also tall, but dark, with slightly longer hair.
From "The Bell Jar" by Sylvia Plath
About 30,000 Minnesotans were trained as observers, all intent on making sure that the human beings around them were being treated with basic dignity and given due process.
From Slate ● Jul. 27, 2026
Even then, observers will not be able to see everything within that distance.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 25, 2026
Those are widely seen as more legally durable, but trade observers expect that overall U.S. tariff rates won’t change much in the short term under the new legal regime.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 22, 2026
Close observers expect them to release it soon.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 21, 2026
In 1998, Japanese observers reported that neutrinos do have mass, but not a great deal–about one ten-millionth that of an electron.
From "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
