as in to guard
to walk or go around or through (an area, building, etc.) especially in order to make sure that it is safe
The squad had orders to patrol the area. The border is patrolled by the army.
Synonyms & Similar Words
Antonyms & Near Antonyms
Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of patrol
Pat Saperstein, Variety, 28 Apr. 2025
Security was tight with patrols of police officers, and access to some roads to the prisons restricted for hours beforehand.
—Reuters, CNN Money, 28 Apr. 2025
Jessi Virtusio, Chicago Tribune, 15 Apr. 2025
UnitedHealthcare hired Minnetonka police to patrol the company’s headquarters daily following CEO Brian Thompson’s murder in Manhattan in December, according to local ABC affiliate KTSP.
—Joseph Wilkinson, New York Daily News, 14 Apr. 2025
See All Example Sentences for patrol
Noun
Meanwhile, Bernadette’s (Jessica Matten) assignment with the border patrol goes violently astray, snaring her in the web of a drug-running and human-trafficking ranch owner who has an untold number of her colleagues on the payroll.
—Pat Saperstein, Variety, 28 Apr. 2025
Security was tight with patrols of police officers, and access to some roads to the prisons restricted for hours beforehand.
—Reuters, CNN Money, 28 Apr. 2025
Verb
He had been assigned to patrol and worked the midnight shift.
—Jessi Virtusio, Chicago Tribune, 15 Apr. 2025
UnitedHealthcare hired Minnetonka police to patrol the company’s headquarters daily following CEO Brian Thompson’s murder in Manhattan in December, according to local ABC affiliate KTSP.
—Joseph Wilkinson, New York Daily News, 14 Apr. 2025
See All Example Sentences for patrol
Recent Examples of Synonyms for patrol
Noun
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Occasionally, gang members would come rushing in and that’s when auto sentry guns would be useful.—
Gieson Cacho,
Mercury News,
1 Apr. 2025
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One such ancient story centers on the bronze sentry Talos.—
Sofia Giannuzzi,
Smithsonian Magazine,
22 Apr. 2025
Verb
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And when the focus shifts from guarding what’s been built to cultivating what’s possible next.—
Francois Botha,
Forbes.com,
4 May 2025
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Reese, who led LSU to the 2023 national championship, later threw a three-quarter-court pass to guard Rachel Banham for an easy layup.—
Ben Pickman,
New York Times,
3 May 2025
Noun
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This international folk horror co-production stars Odessa Young as Eva, a widow struggling to survive in a bleak 19th century fishing outpost in the Arctic.—
K. Thor Jensen,
PC Magazine,
9 May 2025
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China currently maintains two overseas military outposts, one located in Djibouti near the Red Sea and another located in Cambodia on the South China Sea, which opened last month.—
Ryan Chan,
MSNBC Newsweek,
6 May 2025
Verb
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House of Aama House of Aama, established in 2015, presents fashion as an instrument for storytelling while protecting cultural heritage and preserving memories.—
Arthur Zaczkiewicz,
Footwear News,
5 May 2025
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President Trump is standing up for every student denied an education or safe campus because left-wing universities fail to protect their civil rights.—
Robert Costa,
CBS News,
4 May 2025
Noun
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From 1910 to 2001, the Liberty Crest Apartments were known as the Lorton Reformatory, a prison in Lorton, Virginia that housed inmates from Washington, D.C. It is more widely known as the site where many suffragists were held after the Silent Sentinels pickets at the White House in 1917.—
Celia Fernandez,
CNBC,
19 Apr. 2025
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More than 400 of the 600 unionized workers took part in the pickets at the distributor’s Hunts Point headquarters on E. 149th St. in the Bronx and at other facilities owned by the company on Metropolitan Ave.—
Ellen Moynihan,
New York Daily News,
17 Apr. 2025
Noun
-
The Moon's Joint Army unleashes soldiers while an elite commando unit from Earth called VC3 Squad, led by Jack, infiltrates undercover to wipe out the rebel faction known as the Moon Chains.—
Jeff Spry,
Space.com,
30 Apr. 2025
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This week, Finnish commandos boarded an oil tanker that officials suspect had cut through vital underwater cables in the Baltic Sea, including one that carries electricity between Finland and Estonia.—
Michael Schwirtz,
New York Times,
28 Dec. 2024
Noun
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While the Classic looks a little more built-up, and has what may be a larger, physical rotating bezel, both watches have what’s known in some circles as a squircle design.—
Andrew Williams,
Forbes.com,
9 May 2025
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Under her watch, the company distributed such festival firepower as The Boy and the Heron and Memoir of a Snail.—
Patrick Brzeski,
HollywoodReporter,
9 May 2025
Noun
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The north was expected to be America’s rear guard, a place where values like democracy and women’s rights might have taken hold.—
Azam Ahmed,
New York Times,
24 Dec. 2024
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And assassins from a coalition of all the local indigenous tribes — out for blood over the murder of Jimmy the Creek, one of their own, last episode — slit the throats of Ming’s rear guard.—
Sean T. Collins,
Vulture,
10 Nov. 2024
Cite this Entry
“Patrol.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/patrol. Accessed 17 May. 2025.
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