watchful

1. 1.

   engaged in or accustomed to close observation

   “caught by a couple of alert cops”

   “alert enough to spot the opportunity when it came”

   “constantly alert and vigilant, like a sentinel on duty”

   Synonymsalert

   Similarargus-eyedflyheads-uplidless
2. 2.

   experiencing or accompanied by sleeplessness

   “insomniac old people”

   “insomniac nights”

   “lay sleepless all night”

   “twenty watchful, weary, tedious nights”

   Synonymsinsomniacsleepless

   Similarawake

Other forms of watchful

comparative

watchfuller·

superlative

watchfullest·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about watchful

What does watchful mean?

watchful means "engaged in or accustomed to close observation". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in watchful?

watchful has 2 syllables: watch-ful. The stress falls on "watch". In IPA it is /ˈwɑtʃfəl/.

What is another word for watchful?

Close synonyms include alert, insomniac, sleepless. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is watchful a common word?

watchful is banded "Familiar" — widely understood, used when the subject calls for it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.