Other forms: oversights
Oversight is supervision, or a mistake made by not noticing. Parliamentary oversight, an unfortunate oversight, oversight of the budget.
The two senses are near opposites — watching over something, and failing to see it — and only context tells you which is meant. Regulatory oversight means supervision; due to an oversight means somebody missed it.
1nounoversightSupervision, or a mistake made by not noticing.
“Your name was missing from the list because of an oversight, and we apologise.”
oversight is a supervision, or a mistake.
Over plus sight. The two senses split from the same idea of looking over something.
Proto-West Germanic
*sihti — seeing, sight
Old English
sihþ — something seen; vision
Middle English
sighte
English
sight
English, today
oversight
From over + sight. Aufsicht. sight comes from Middle English sighte, from Old English sihþ (“something seen; vision”), from Proto-West Germanic sihti (“seeing, sight”), equivalent to see + t. 2 Cognate with cim gazicht (“sight, vision; pupil”), Dutch gezicht (“face; sight, vision”), zicht (“sight, vision”), German Gesicht (“face; sight, vision”), Sicht (“view; sight; visibility”), lb Gesiicht (“face”), Siicht (“view; sight”), Yiddish געזיכט (“face”), Danish sigt (“sight; visibility”), Norwegian Bokmål and Norwegian Nynorsk sikt (“visibility”), Swedish sikt (“visibility”), sikte (“sight”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA