surveillance
/sɚˈveɪ.ləns/noun
surveillance is spelled S-U-R-V-E-I-L-L-A-N-C-E. The wrong spelling people search most is surveilence: about 70 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026). Surveillance is a noun meaning “Close observation of an individual or group; person or persons under suspicion”. The plural of surveillance is surveillances.
How many letters and syllables are in surveillance?
| Letters | 12: S-U-R-V-E-I-L-L-A-N-C-E |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 3 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 15 times per million words; the 5,407th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, surveilence, about 70 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
| Rhymes with |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How do you spell surveillance?
Surveillance is spelled S-U-R-V-E-I-L-L-A-N-C-E. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure.
Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.
How common is surveillance?
Surveillance appears 15 times per million words in written English, the 5,407th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce surveillance?
- US /sɚˈveɪ.ləns/
- UK /səˈveɪ.ləns/
- /səɾˈveː.ləns/
Surveillance has 3 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-surveillance.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
What rhymes with surveillance?
One word on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as surveillance from its last stressed vowel (/eɪləns/):
Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).
Forms of surveillance
- surveillances plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does surveillance mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
Close observation of an individual or group; person or persons under suspicion.
- 2
Continuous monitoring of disease occurrence for example.
- 3
Systematic observation of places and people by visual, aural, electronic, photographic or other means.
- 4
In criminal law, an investigation process by which police gather evidence about crimes, or suspected crime, through continued observation of persons or places.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you abbreviate surveillance?
Wiktionary records one abbreviation of surveillance: ISR.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Surveillance in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense observation of individuals or groups of individuals:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | surveillance, fichage |
| German | Überwachung |
| Portuguese | vigilância |
| Spanish | vigilancia |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.