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say it: WAHCH-fuhl
watchful is an adjective meaning "engaged in or accustomed to close observation". It carries 2 recorded senses.
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”
experiencing or accompanied by sleeplessness
“insomniac old people”
“insomniac nights”
“lay sleepless all night”
“twenty watchful, weary, tedious nights”
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.
Definitions, synonyms and semantic relations for watchful come from Princeton University’s WordNet. The pronunciation comes from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. Commonness is measured against a corpus of everyday English. Full sources and licences.