spotter
Americannoun
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spotters
plural
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a person employed to remove spots from clothing, especially at a dry-cleaning establishment.
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(in civil defense) a civilian who watches for enemy airplanes.
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Informal. a person employed to watch the activity and behavior of others, especially employees, as for evidence of dishonesty.
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Military. an observer at a forward position who singles out targets for gunners.
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a person or thing that spots.
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(in small-arms practice firing) a small black disk attached to the target to make more prominent the places where a bullet has hit.
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an assistant to a sportscaster who provides the names of the players chiefly involved in each play of a game, especially a football game.
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Gymnastics, Tumbling. a person who is stationed in the most effective place to guard against an injury to a performer in the act of executing a maneuver.
noun
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a person or thing that watches or observes
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( as modifier )
a spotter plane
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a person who makes a hobby of watching for and noting numbers or types of trains, buses, etc
a train spotter
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military a person who orders or advises adjustment of fire on a target by observations
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a person, esp one engaged in civil defence, who watches for enemy aircraft
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informal an employee assigned to spy on his colleagues in order to check on their honesty
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films
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a person who checks against irregularities and inconsistencies
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a person who searches for new material, performers, etc
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Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of spotter
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:
Chuckling, he points at his rival spotter: "But I beat him by a second."
From BBC ● Aug. 8, 2026
The macro and thematic equity research group was founded by investor and trend spotter James van Geelen, who identified AI as a game changer in 2022 and spotted diet drugs early in 2023.
From MarketWatch ● Feb. 12, 2026
The surge of immigration detention flights at Minneapolis-Saint Paul airport spurred plane spotter Nick Benson to shift from tracking rare and unusual aircraft to cataloging the removal of detainees from Minnesota.
From Barron's ● Jan. 29, 2026
He would be driving a spotter car mounted with plate readers.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 28, 2025
A spotter reads coordinates into the headpiece, and an artilleryman repeats them back.
From "All the Light We Cannot See" by Anthony Doerr
Another low-tech solution used successfully in nearby Cape Town is to position spotters, akin to lifeguards, to look out for sharks.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 31, 2026
Kane and her fellow spotters publish the locations of officers and raids underway in an effort to document arrests and de-escalate the encounters with their presence.
From Barron's ● Jan. 28, 2026
Ok was especially alarmed to see forklifts, which are responsible for a significant number of construction deaths, speeding around, often unaided by required spotters.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 12, 2025
Now there’s spotters to make sure no hawks are nearby.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 23, 2025
On the roofs of the ambulances were spotters with binoculars.
From "Catch-22" by Joseph Heller
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.
