surveillance

UK/səˈveɪ.ləns/US/sɚˈveɪ.ləns/

nounB2Very common — you will meet it every day · #1,618 of 15,258neutral

Surveillance is the constant secret watching of people. Under surveillance, surveillance cameras, mass surveillance.

Britain has among the highest densities of CCTV cameras anywhere, and the argument about how much is justified has run for decades without resolving. Targeted surveillance follows a suspect; mass surveillance collects on everybody and sorts afterwards, which is a different thing legally and morally. Note surveil; and that the French means watching over.

Definitions of surveillance

1nounsurveillanceThe constant secret watching of people.B2
“Detectives kept the house under surveillance for weeks before they made an arrest.”

surveillance is a watching.

Where it comes from

French surveillance is sur, over, plus veiller, to watch, from Latin vigilare. Vigil, vigilant and reveille come from the same watching.

French
surveillance
English, today
surveillance

Built from

surveiller · French — to watch, oversee
sur- · French — over
veiller · French — to watch

Borrowed from French surveillance. French surveillance (“a watching over, overseeing, supervision”), from surveiller (“to watch, oversee”), from sur- (“over”) + veiller (“to watch”), from Middle French -, from Old French veillier (“to stay awake”), from Latin vigilō (“to be watchful”). More at vigilant.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Technology & Internet, Spying & Secrecy

Practise this word

surveillance in the wild

In 2013, the NSA had many of its secret surveillance programs revealed to the public by Edward Snowden, a former NSA contractor.
National Security Agency
Surveillance aircraft or observation aircraft are aircraft used for aerial surveillance.
Surveillance aircraft
Increasingly, government and intelligence agencies have conducted surveillance by obtaining consumer data through the purchase of online information.
Surveillance
Improvements in the technology available to governments have led to mass surveillance and global surveillance.
Surveillance
The surveillance is often done via the use of technologies that collect data on a large mass of individuals.
Mass surveillance

1 / 2

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

← Vocabulary