Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use watchman in a sentence

14 example sentences · noun

Watchman means a man set to watch: a man who keeps guard, especially one who guards a building, or the streets of a city, by night; (loosely) any such person of any sex or gender. Example: “Watchmen are stationed continuously at each end of the bridge, and the main spans are patrolled twice during the night.”

Examples of watchman by meaning

nounA man set to watch: a man who keeps guard, especially one who guards a building, or the streets of a city, by night...

  • Watchmen are stationed continuously at each end of the bridge, and the main spans are patrolled twice during the night.1950 March, H. A. Vallance, “On Foot Across the Forth Bridge”, in Railway Magazine, page 149
  • In 1972, a night watchman patrolling a hotel-office complex noticed that the basement garage door had been taped open and, attributing this to the carelessness of a maintenance worker earlier that day, peeled the tape off.2004 September 5, Laura Miller, “Imagine”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, archived from the original on 15 Jul 2021
  • A black night watchman at a factory is accused of murdering a young white secretary who works at the factory, but it turns out the factory owner accidentally killed her when she refused his advances.2010, Bob McCann, Encyclopedia of African American Actresses in Film and Television, page 51

More sentences with watchman

  • The watchman is sharing a bidi and a chai with his friend down the road.2020, Avni Doshi, Burnt Sugar, Hamish Hamilton, page 139. From the entry bidi
  • In addition, a watchcoat for sergeants and night watchmen costing £1-6-7d was issued every second year.2012, John McGowan, Policing the Metropolis of Scotland: A History of the Police and Systems of Police in Edinburgh and Edinburghshire…. From the entry watchcoat
  • At that time, father, brother and I worked as night watchmen at the grain dryer.2004 December 17, Evgenii D. Moniushko, From Leningrad to Hungary: Notes of a Red Army Soldier, 1941-1946, Routledge, →ISBN, page 51. From the entry dryer
  • If any spikes were left protruding in the morning the watchman had to give a satisfactory explanation.1915, Factory, the Magazine of Management, volume 14, page 233. From the entry quarter-hourly
  • At sundown the night watchman came on duty.2011, Maurice Harvey, Into the Great Unknown: Adventures in Africa, Eastern Europe, and Asia, Bloomington, Ill.: iUniverse, →ISBN, page 66. From the entry watchnight
  • The doctrines of conservative liberalism were propounded by the late nineteenth century's leading intellectual proponents of the night watchman state.1992, Mark A. Graber, Transforming Free Speech: The Ambiguous Legacy of Civil Libertarianism, University of California Press, →ISBN, page 18. From the entry night watchman state
  • He, watchman of gardens, keeps evil away with his mentula up, warding off blight and thieves, garlanded with figs and grapes.1974, Guy Davenport, Tatlin!. From the entry mentula
  • Watchman replaced him in the linkup seat.1970 June, Robert Silverberg, “The Tower of Glass”, in Galaxy Science Fiction, volume 30, number 3, page 141. From the entry jack in
  • As night watchman he was required to punch a watchman's clock; the stations were scattered all over the place.1922, William Otis Badger, editor, The Workmen's compensation law journal, volume 10, page 129. From the entry punch
  • Meanwhile, NR faced an unexpected challenge when a night watchman spotted several Koi Carp swimming in floodwater close to the railway, after they had escaped from a nearby private residence.2020 May 20, Paul Stephen, “NR beats floods to secure tracks to Drax”, in Rail, page 59. From the entry swim
  • It targeted the unbanked poor – "the watchmen, tomato sellers and small-scale farmers" whom Mwangi lists as typical customers – with cheap savings accounts and microloans backed by unusual guarantees.2009 January 2, Xan Rice, “Three million customers and still counting: the bank getting rich by helping the poor”, in The Guardian (London). From the entry unbanked

Meaning of watchman

  1. noun A man set to watch: a man who keeps guard, especially one who guards a building, or the streets of a city, by night; (loosely) any such person of any sex or gender.

Full definition of watchman

Questions about watchman in a sentence

How do you use watchman in a sentence?
Watchman is used as a noun. For example: “Watchmen are stationed continuously at each end of the bridge, and the main spans are patrolled twice during the night.”
What is a short sentence with watchman?
“Watchman replaced him in the linkup seat.”
What does watchman mean?
Watchman means a man set to watch: a man who keeps guard, especially one who guards a building, or the streets of a city, by night; (loosely) any such person of any sex or gender.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: watchman (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 watchman in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/watchman. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.