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

District Court of Maine, alleging that federal agents are using facial recognition and license plate readers to surveil and threaten legal observers in the state.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 24, 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

In all probability, Voyager 1 and its siblings—launched in 1977 to surveil our solar system’s outer planets and moons and then head into interstellar space—will vastly outlive humans, the sun and the planet Earth.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 23, 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

Every cancer survivor would be sequenced at diagnosis and surveilled every few months.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 14, 2026

His experience was exacerbated by things happening in the real world, which convinced him he was being surveilled.

From BBC ● May 2, 2026

"We're already being surveilled by billions of smartphones, city camera networks and smart devices that we willingly placed in our homes."

From Barron's ● Jan. 11, 2026

Somali community groups report people staying home from work, while businesses worry they are being surveilled.

From Salon ● Dec. 8, 2025

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

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

Fears of China's transnational repression - broadly defined as a government harassing or surveilling individuals in other territories - have risen in recent years.

From BBC ● Aug. 15, 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