Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use observe in a sentence

40 example sentences · verb, noun

Observe means to notice or view, especially carefully or with attention to detail. Example: “From this vantage point we can observe the behavior of the animals in their natural habitat.”

Examples of observe by meaning

verbTo notice or view, especially carefully or with attention to detail.

  • From this vantage point we can observe the behavior of the animals in their natural habitat.
  • She got up before dawn to observe the lunar eclipse.
  • The vortex is a spinning, cyclonic mass of fluid, which can be observed in the rotation of water going down a drain, as well as in smoke rings, tornados and hurricanes.2013 March, Frank Fish, George Lauder, “Not Just Going with the Flow”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 2, page 114

verbTo follow or obey the custom, practice, or rules (especially of a religion).

  • Please observe all posted speed limits.
  • A sell-out crowd of 10,000 then observed perfectly a period of silence before the team revealed their black armbands, complete with stitched-in poppies, for the match.2011 November 10, Jeremy Wilson, “England Under 21 5 Iceland Under 21 0: match report”, in Telegraph

verbTo take note of and celebrate (a holiday or similar occurrence), to keep; to follow (a type of time or calendar...

  • On Sunday, most of Canada will observe daylight time and spring forward an hour in order to reflect the increasing sunlight.2020 (March 7), Jackie Dunham, "Daylight time: How to get enough sleep when the clocks spring forward, CTV News

verbTo comment on something; to make an observation.

  • The senator observed that the bill would be detrimental to his constituents.
  • Elbows almost touching they leaned at ease, idly reading the almost obliterated lines engraved there. ¶ "I never understood it," she observed, lightly scornful.1907 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, chapter VIII, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC

More sentences with observe

  • The stargazer observed the moons of Jupiter for over a year.From the entry moon
  • The javelin flew wild and struck a spectator, to the horror of all observing.From the entry wild
  • When you speak clearly, people understand you. If you don't mumble, the obverse effect is observed.From the entry obverse
  • Sunday, July 1: Canada Day; Monday, July 2: Canada Day observed.From the entry observed
  • As with many bilingual families, it was normal to observe frequent code-switching at our dinner table.From the entry code-switching
  • They stood and observed how long it took for the other cars to honk.From the entry honk
  • He observed the crinkles forming around his eyes and suddenly felt old.From the entry crinkle
  • A large aberrative oscillation has been observed in the financial markets.From the entry aberrative
  • Dedecoration did not produce any advantages in observing the size of the displacement of dislocations.From the entry dedecoration
  • We detected the submarine long before it observed us.From the entry detected
  • We met the new captain while we were taking enemy fire and were unable to observe the niceties of formal introductions.From the entry nicety
  • Plasmarons have been observed in graphene and in elemental bismuth.From the entry plasmaron
  • Asociality is a symptom frequently observed in schizophrenia patients.From the entry asociality
  • "Effects of the drugs on hyponeophagia in rats was observed".From the entry hyponeophagia
  • Polar wander can be used to measure the degree to which Earth's magnetic poles have been observed to move relative to the Earth's rotation axis.From the entry polar wander
  • You will observe that this is an open letter and we reserve the right to mention it to the judge should the matter come to trial.From the entry open
  • After talking with and observing his new patient for a few minutes, the doctor began to inspect his charge by means of a formal physical examination.From the entry inspect
  • A hacking cough is most commonly observed in chronic catarrh of the upper air-passages, in pharyngitis and laryngitis, and especially in beginning pulmonary tuberculosis; hence its importance.From the entry hacking cough
  • "In my experience, there's always a 'not my problem' attitude," he observes.2026 April 1, Richard Foster, “Fenland bridge "not safe"”, in RAIL, number 1058, page 33. From the entry bone of contention
  • We do not need a hypothetical supermodel to observe the trend.2026 June 16, “The Mythos Debate Misses the Point”, in Optiv.com. From the entry supermodel
  • Again, no association between gene copy number of chlorophylly strategy was observed in Xerophyta.2026, Eugene N. K. Kabwe et al., Transcriptional regulation of the response to water availability in the resurrection plant Xerophyta…. From the entry chlorophylly
  • Kaminski’s theory developed over decades of observing clients who didn’t fully identify as either introvert or extrovert.2025 August 17, Sarah Avi, “Meet the “Otrovert,” A New Personality Type That May Describe You Better Than Anything”, in Free Jupiter…. From the entry introvert
  • One possible explanation is that helping is driven by receiving or observing help.2025 November 13, Kamala Thiagarajan, “If you're going to be kind to another human, today is the day to do it!”, in NPR. From the entry pay it forward
  • This rare phenomenon, called xenoparous reproduction, has never been observed before in the animal kingdom.2025 July 9, “Unbelievable discovery: Queen ants produce offspring of two different species, say scientists”, in The Times of India…. From the entry xenoparous
  • Having an ASD official diagnosis is based on observing ASD atypical behaviors.2023 April 13, Omniah AlQahtani, Maria Efstratopoulou, “The UAE and Gulf Countries’ Cultural Characteristics and Their Influence on…. From the entry maladaptive
  • Scott et al. observe that there may be other strategies to play minesweeper.2022, Alex Thieme, Twan Basten, “Minesweeper is Difficult Indeed!: Technology Scaling for Minesweeper Circuits”, in Mariëlle Stoelinga…. From the entry minesweeper
  • It is also commonly observed that predators of seabirds ingest high quantities of plastics via trophic transfer.2021, Alice A. Horton, Isobelle Blissett, Impacts of Plastic Pollution on Freshwater Aquatic, Terrestrial and Avian Migratory Species in…. From the entry trophic transfer
  • We have observed on several occasions that the expressive resources afforded by superplurals would have useful applications.2021, Salvatore Florio, Øystein Linnebo, The Many and the One: A Philosophical Study of Plural Logic, Oxford University Press, page 174. From the entry superpluralism
  • Similarly, at Cambridge, I observe what I had seen elsewhere - the dearth of tourists.2020 November 18, Paul Bigland, “New infrastructure and new rolling stock”, in RAIL, page 50. From the entry dearth
  • I arrive at the station in time to snap a few pictures and observe my fellow passengers.2020 December 2, Paul Bigland, “My weirdest and wackiest Rover yet”, in Rail, page 64. From the entry snap
  • In modern birds—living theropods—we can observe the process of pneumatization during development.2020, Mary Higby Schweitzer, Elena Rita Schroeter, Charles Doug Czajka, Dinosaurs: How We Know What We Know, page 210. From the entry theropod
  • Baseline and periodic CPK levels while on therapy, as rhabdomyolysis has been observed with binimetinib therapy.2020, Edward Chu; Vincent T[heodore] DeVita, Jr., “Chemotherapeutic and Biologic Drugs”, in Physicians’ Cancer Chemotherapy Drug Manual…. From the entry binimetinib

Meaning of observe

  1. verb To notice or view, especially carefully or with attention to detail.
  2. verb To follow or obey the custom, practice, or rules (especially of a religion).
  3. verb To take note of and celebrate (a holiday or similar occurrence), to keep; to follow (a type of time or calendar reckoning).

Full definition of observe

Questions about observe in a sentence

How do you use observe in a sentence?
Observe is used as a verb and noun. For example: “From this vantage point we can observe the behavior of the animals in their natural habitat.”
What is a short sentence with observe?
“Please observe all posted speed limits.”
What does observe mean?
Observe means to notice or view, especially carefully or with attention to detail.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: observe (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this page: “How to use observe in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/observe. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.