surveil
/səˈveɪl/US/sɚˈveɪl/
surveil verb: to keep someone or something under surveillance.
Verb
surveil (third-person singular simple present surveils, present participle surveilling, simple past and past participle surveilled)
- To keep someone or something under surveillance.
- The plaintiff also stresses that the store as a whole, and the customer exits especially, were closely surveilled.
Forms of surveil
| third-person singular present | surveils |
|---|---|
| present participle | surveilling |
| past participle | surveilled |
| past | surveilled |
Origin of surveil
Back-formation from surveillance (but cf. French surveiller and its variant surveille). First attested in 1903.
Words formed from surveil
Words that rhyme with surveil
48 more rhymesFewer rhymes
- veil
- pale
- avail
- wale
- whale
- bail
- hail
- yale
- bale
- snail
- travail
- brail
- exhale
- frail
- jail
- prevail
- swale
- vail
- wail
- derail
- dwale
- entail
- flail
- Gail
- gayle
- impale
- kale
- quail
- regale
- spale
- thumbnail
- white whale
- ale
- curtail
- drail
- gale
- inhale
- retail
- shale
- tael
- unveil
- ail
- all hail
- assail
- ayel
- beyond the pale
- braille
- cakes and ale
Questions about surveil
- What does surveil mean?
- Surveil means to keep someone or something under surveillance.
- What part of speech is surveil?
- Surveil is a verb.
- How do you pronounce surveil?
- Surveil is pronounced /sɚˈveɪl/ (US).
- What is the past tense of surveil?
- The past tense of surveil is surveilled.
Words near surveil in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: surveil (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-survveil.wav.
Cite this entry: “surveil.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/surveil. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.