surveil

American  

[ser-veyl] / sərˈveɪl /

verb (used with object)

surveilled, surveilling

1. to place under surveillance.

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surveil British  

/ sɜːˈveɪl /

verb

1. to observe closely the activities of (a person or group)

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Etymology

Origin of surveil

First recorded in 1965–70; back formation from surveillance

Explanation

To surveil is to spy on someone, the way a television private eye sits in her car and uses binoculars to surveil the show's villain. The noun surveillance came first, from the French surveiller, "to oversee or watch." If you were to surveil someone, you'd keep a close eye on them, monitoring everything they do. These days, that means keeping track of their online activity as well as their phone calls and physical movement. It's usually authority and governmental figures doing the surveillance — although if a company wants to sell you something, they just might surveil your internet history.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

surveil surveilled surveilling

Frank Bisignano directed staff to use software to snoop in email of rivals and surveil work of employees; Bisignano, who also heads Social Security, denied he ever spied on co-workers.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 21, 2026

“It is over whether the state can or should require a consumer tool to surveil a person’s designs before they are allowed to make something.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 19, 2026

A joint statement said the new project would see "cutting edge payloads and enabling systems" developed for UUVs which could protect seabed infrastructure, conduct strikes, surveil and do reconnaissance, and conduct logistics operations.

From BBC ● May 30, 2026

Tech companies like Google and Meta are not the only recourse for the federal government to surveil social media users.

From Salon ● Mar. 12, 2026

Anthropic doesn’t want its products used to surveil Americans or create autonomous machines of war.

From Slate ● Feb. 27, 2026

"We'll get that at some point, whenever we want. We'll have it surveilled," he told independent television journalist Sharyl Attkisson.

From Barron's ● May 10, 2026

A UK Border Force officer surveilled and investigated Chinese citizens in Britain as part of a "shadow policing operation" with its "tentacles" reaching from Hong Kong, a court has heard.

From BBC ● Mar. 5, 2026

Still more people have been surveilled and captured in DHS databases, with federal agents in some cases holding cellphones inches from their faces to scan their features, or else taking pictures of their license plates.

From Salon ● Feb. 14, 2026

What happens to a generation surveilled more closely than even prisoners ever were?

From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 3, 2026

I'm a senior at Cesar Chavez high in San Francisco's sunny Mission district, and that makes me one of the most surveilled people in the world.

From Little Brother by Doctorow, Cory

He spoke as cheers echoed off the skyscrapers dotted around the World Trade Center, where Knicks gathered alongside National Guard troops surveilling the area.

From Barron's ● Jun. 18, 2026

"At night, I'd often hear a buzzing sound. I was in secondary school and didn't realise it then, but these were planes surveilling our neighbourhood," Ali tells the BBC.

From BBC ● Jun. 6, 2026

In the most technical sense, none of this violates the red lines that Amodei outlined around surveilling Americans or allowing its tech to power fully autonomous killing machines.

From Slate ● Mar. 3, 2026

In November, Kurdish-led and U.S. forces arrested a senior Islamic State leader at Al Hol whom they had been surveilling for days.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 24, 2025

“They’re watching us in here, too? Are we allowed to use the bathroom privately, or are they surveilling our bodily functions as well?”

From "Internment" by Samira Ahmed