watchman
watch·man/ˈwɒtʃmən/noun
watchman is a noun meaning “A man set to watch: a man who keeps guard, especially one who guards a building, or the streets of a city, by night; (loosely) any such person of any…” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled W-A-T-C-H-M-A-N and has 2 syllables (watch·man), and it appears 1.0 times per million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of watchman is watchmen.
What does watchman mean?
noun
- 1
A man set to watch: a man who keeps guard, especially one who guards a building, or the streets of a city, by night; (loosely) any such person of any sex or gender.
Near-synonyms: watcher, watchwoman
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce watchman?
- /ˈwɒtʃmən/
Watchman has 2 syllables, split watch·man in writing.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vininn126-watchman.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of watchman
- watchmen plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is watchman?
Watchman appears 1.0 times per million words in written English, the 28,556th 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).
Watchman in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense guard:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | guetteur, sentinelle |
| German | Wächter |
| Portuguese | vigia |
| Spanish | encargado, watchman, wachacarros |
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.
Where does watchman come from?
From Middle English waccheman. By surface analysis, watch + -man.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).