surveil

verb

sur·​veil sər-ˈvāl 

surveilled; surveilling

transitive verb

: to subject to surveillance

Examples of surveil in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Anthropic was happy to permit a role for Claude to surveil individuals under the jurisdiction of a FISA court, a secretive tribunal that oversees requests for surveillance warrants involving foreign powers or their agents on domestic soil. —Gideon Lewis-Kraus, New Yorker, 14 Mar. 2026

Civil liberties groups, however, continue to accuse the company of doing the opposite—by helping the government surveil. —Jessica Mathews, Fortune, 13 Mar. 2026

Toh says that while this is technically legal, an AI model like Claude can put together seemingly unrelated data points that would provide extremely sensitive insights into people’s lives, habits, and movements that could be used to surveil or target them. —Lorena O’Neil, Rolling Stone, 10 Mar. 2026

The American public has no choice now but to trust that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Musk, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and Amodei will not use AI to surveil them. —Matteo Wong, The Atlantic, 9 Mar. 2026

Word History

Etymology

back-formation from surveillance

First Known Use

1884, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for surveil

• airmail
• assail
• avail
• bewail
• blackmail
• cattail
• cocktail
• curtail
• derail
• detail
• dovetail
• email