Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use surveillance in a sentence

40 example sentences · noun

Surveillance means close observation of an individual or group; person or persons under suspicion. Example: “The suspect told all when he saw the surveillance tapes linking him to the crime scene.”

Examples of surveillance by meaning

nounClose observation of an individual or group; person or persons under suspicion.

  • The surveillance program includes at least 480 LPRs that scan and record about 16.2 million vehicles per week and stores that data for two years, he wrote in the court filing.2023 July 24, Chris Eberhart, “NY police used AI to track drivers on highways as attorney questions legality”, in Fox News, archived from...

nounSystematic observation of places and people by visual, aural, electronic, photographic or other means.

  • Each one in turn clicks up the ratchet of surveillance, intrusion and security.2012 December 14, Simon Jenkins, “We mustn't overreact to North Korea boys' toys”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 188, number 2, archived...
  • “This is surveillance,” he continued.2019 January 31, Ian Bogost, quoting Tim Cook, “Apple’s Empty Grandstanding About Privacy”, in The Atlantic, archived from the original on...
  • And that sight will become more common in the coming years, as the city’s police pursue an ambitious campaign to install thousands of cameras to elevate their surveillance capabilities.2024 October 5, Jessie Yeung, “Hong Kong plans to install thousands of surveillance cameras. Critics say it’s more proof the city is moving...

More sentences with surveillance

  • The suspect told all when he saw the surveillance tapes linking him to the crime scene.From the entry tell all
  • Civil-liberties advocates warned that the expanding surveillance apparatus had created turnkey tyranny.From the entry turnkey tyranny
  • Surveillance was accomplished by means of intercepting the spies' communications.From the entry communication
  • The surveillance mission yielded a healthy harvest of intel.From the entry harvest
  • In Mori Kazakh Autonomous County, Guanguan films a detention center flanked by watchtowers and surveillance cameras.2021 November 18, Nuriman Abdurashid, Roseanne Gerin, “Video from Xinjiang provides fresh evidence of China’s Uyghur repression”, in Radio…. From the entry Mori
  • Surveillance by other inmates creates yet another dimension of power and control.2016, April Kalogeropoulos Householder, Adrienne Trier-Bieniek, Feminist Perspectives on Orange Is the New Black, page 85. From the entry lesbian
  • If you think you can steer clear of government surveillance by staying off-line, think again.2013, “Surveillance State: Three Ways You're Being Watched”, in BloombergBusinessweek Videos, retrieved 15 Jan 2014. From the entry steer clear
  • They can wire tap, look for Durand, and put Mulrooney under surveillance.2012, Glenn A. Sunness, The Guernica Project, page 628. From the entry wire tap
  • Under a cover sheet, two dozen photocopied surveillance photographs were attached.2012 May 22, Richard Marcinko, John Weisman, Option Delta: Rogue Warrior (Rogue warrior), Simon and Schuster, →ISBN. From the entry surveilee
  • The consensual molestation of an ingénue by means of surveillance and recording equipment.2009 July 15, Virginia Heffernan, “Bibliovision”, in The New York Times, →ISSN. From the entry ingénue
  • On another surveillance flight I accompanied a prominent pollie of the day, a big, bluff, ruddy-faced Minister.2009, David Daniel, Rough as Guts, page 177. From the entry pollie
  • Muñoz grimly acknowledged the possibility that surveillance irregularities had occurred earlier this decade.2009 September 17, Simon Romero, “A Scandal Over Spying Intensifies in Colombia”, in New York Times. From the entry bunkeresque
  • “Surveillance cameras?” asked Donnette Carter of the Porterville Chamber of Commerce.2002 September 29, Dean E. Murphy, “As Security Cameras Sprout, Someone’s Always Watching”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New…. From the entry Donnette
  • Somebody who could do a bit of house- or office-breaking, or some surveillance work.2000, Philip Davison, McKenzie’s Friend, Penguin, page 37. From the entry understrapper
  • Strebe said she installed five surveillance cameras at her home and now fuels her car only at night to avoid neighbors.2025 November 19, Raphael Satter and A.J. Vicens, “The Charlie Kirk purge: How 600 Americans were punished in a pro-Trump crackdown”, in…. From the entry Salem
  • This is McMuskism: it’s McCarthyism on steroids, political persecution + Trump + Musk + Silicon Valley surveillance tools.2024 November 17, Carole Cadwalladr, “How to survive the broligarchy: 20 lessons for the post-truth world”, in Katharine Viner, editor…. From the entry McMuskism
  • Trump’s distrust of security agencies and surveillance.2023 February 27, Charlie Savage, “Security Agencies and Congress Brace for Fight Over Expiring Surveillance Law”, in The New York Times. From the entry reauthorization
  • "Surveillance networks based on ALPR technology can track people’s movements retroactively with a simple search query," he wrote.2023 July 24, Chris Eberhart, “NY police used AI to track drivers on highways as attorney questions legality”, in Fox News, archived from…. From the entry ALPR
  • The 15-minute city, he suggested, was a “dystopian plan”, heralding “a surveillance culture that would make Pyongyang envious”.2023 February 16, Oliver Wainwright, “In praise of the ‘15-minute city’ – the mundane planning theory terrifying conspiracists”, in The…. From the entry 15-minute city
  • Amongst the implications we identify the following: management and leadership; arbitration and advocacy; entitlement and surveillance; bureaucratic maximism and minimalism.2021, Routledge Library Editions: Special Educational Needs, page 166. From the entry maximism
  • “Automised job appraisals, AI-generated scripts, micro-housing, the coupling of surveillance and insurance, the burning council estates: it’s all already here.2019 June 30, Philip Oltermann, quoting Sibylle Berg, “German sci-fi fans lap up dystopian tales of Brexit Britain”, in The Guardian. From the entry microhousing
  • It's not too early to ask how close we are to living in a hypernudging algocratic surveillance regime.2019, Ronald Bailey, “Can Algorithms Run Things Better Than Humans? Welcome to the Rise of the Algocracy.”, in Reason, volume 50, number…. From the entry algocratic
  • Inevitabilism enshrines the apparatus of ubiquity as progress but conceals the realpolitik of surveillance capitalism at work behind the scenes.2019, Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, Hachette, →ISBN. From the entry inevitabilism
  • Surveillance video of the incident shows the man and woman being accosted by a man armed with and assault-style handgun.2017 June 21, Glenn E. Rice, “Police seek two gunmen who accosted Kansas City couple”, in The Kansas City Star. From the entry accost
  • No surveillance cameras, no fingerprints, not even a telephone, and still he cracked every case that came his way.2013 March 25, David Sedaris, "Long Way Home" in The New Yorker. From the entry detective
  • The ability to hover as well as fly efficiently at low speeds is crucial for a microflyer designed for indoor surveillance.2013, Akhlesh Lakhtakia, Raul Jose Martin-Palma, Engineered Biomimicry, →ISBN, page 119. From the entry microflyer
  • Coldly perusing his surveillance cameras one day, Mr.2012 May 20, Nathan Rabin, “TV: Review: THE SIMPSONS (CLASSIC): “Marge Gets A Job” (season 4, episode 7; originally aired 11/05/1992)”, in…. From the entry surveillance camera
  • Conjuring up images of Gene Hackman as the surveillance expert in Francis Ford Coppola ’s film “The Conversation,” Mr.2009 July 6, Randy Kennedy, “Sound Tunnel: Avant-Garde Park Portrait”, in New York Times. From the entry heartbeatlike
  • There's no other way he could've known not only the address of the safe house, but also the surveillance posts.2008, Jessica Andersen, Twin Targets, →ISBN, page 127. From the entry counterpassword
  • Of course, Girl Scout healthcraft was not all personality development and surreptitious surveillance; there were still merit badges to be earned.2007, Susan A. Miller, Growing Girls, page 219. From the entry healthcraft
  • This paper describes using wearable computing devices to perform "sousveillance" (inverse surveillance) as a counter to organizational surveillance.2002 September, Steve Mann, Jason Nolan, Barry Wellman, “Sousveillance: Inventing and Using Wearable Computing Devices for Data Collection…. From the entry sousveillance
  • Both of them were used to long surveillance stints.2000, James Patterson, The Midnight Club, page 272. From the entry beaut
  • Berkowitz used the phrase "cyber privacy" to discuss the potential threats posed by cyber surveillance methods to personal privacy.2000 July 19, Bruce D. Berkowitz, “Carnivore Won't Devour Cyber-Privacy”, in The Wall Street Journal. From the entry cyberprivacy
  • Finally, the department of agriculture maintains practically a year-round surveillance to keep the bread-flour mongers from their greedy grabs.1949 November 24, Holmes Alexander, “War Is On Against Bread Mongers”, in Fort Myers News-Press, Fort Myers, Fla., page 4. From the entry flour-monger
  • The Ashland Police Department has decided to not renew its contract for Flock Safety cameras and will be removing the surveillance system.2026 June 30, Jason Van Horn, “Ashland Police Department to remove Flock cameras from city”, in FOX 21, archived from the original on 01…. From the entry Ashland
  • The federal NDP introduced a motion on Wednesday to ban what's known as surveillance pricing, where businesses offer different prices based on consumers' personal data.2026 April 15, Nora Young, “Are you paying more than your neighbour? It could be 'surveillance pricing'”, in CBC News, archived from the…. From the entry surveillance pricing

Meaning of surveillance

  1. noun Close observation of an individual or group; person or persons under suspicion.
  2. noun Continuous monitoring of disease occurrence for example.
  3. noun Systematic observation of places and people by visual, aural, electronic, photographic or other means.

Full definition of surveillance

Questions about surveillance in a sentence

How do you use surveillance in a sentence?
Surveillance is used as a noun. For example: “The suspect told all when he saw the surveillance tapes linking him to the crime scene.”
What is a short sentence with surveillance?
““This is surveillance,” he continued.”
What does surveillance mean?
Surveillance means close observation of an individual or group; person or persons under suspicion.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: surveillance (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.

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