[WATCH sb.]
1. A tower or station from which observation is kept of the approach of danger; a look-out station.
1544. in Rymer, Fœdera (1713), XV. 52. Huberdyn was Slaine with a halfe Haache out of the Wache Tour, as he and his Men went to vue the same.
1578–9. Reg. Privy Council Scot., III. 81. The wache toure upoun Trailtrow,… mon be mendit of the litill diffaceing the Englische army maid of it.
1616. Chapman, trans. Musæus, C 4. A Tower, that Sestian Hero once did make Her Watch-Tower.
1699. Dampier, Voy., II. II. 13. West from Rio de la Gartos, there is a Look-out or Watch-tower, called Selam.
1794. Mrs. Radcliffe, Myst. Udolpho, xliii. To the left … was seen a ruined watch-tower, standing on a point of rock near the sea.
1813. Scott, Trierm., I. xiii. Upon the watch-tower’s airy round No warder stood his horn to sound.
1829. W. Irving, Granada (1850), 21. Every peak had its atalaya or watchtower, ready to make its fire by night or to send up its column of smoke by day, a signal of invasion.
1852. Grote, Greece, II. lxxvii. X. 197. The besieged, detecting from their watch-towers the negligence of the guards, chose a favorable opportunity and made a vigorous sally.
1869. Tozer, Highl. Turkey, I. 361. This place … was the watch-tower that commanded the passes of the Scardus.
b. fig.
1561. T. Norton, Calvin’s Inst., III. xxii. (1634), 458. We must needs come to that lesser people, which Paul in another place said to have been foreknowne to God: not in such sort as these men imagine, to foreknow out of an idle watch-toure the things that hee worketh not: but [etc.].
1571. Golding, Calvin on Ps. lix. 10. David mounted up intoo the watch tower of fayth, from whence he loketh downe without feare.
1639. Rouse, Heav. Univ., ix. (1702), 122. Then stand on thy watch-tower and hear what he teacheth thee.
1768–74. Tucker, Lt. Nat. (1834), II. 19. The true philosopher … considers himself as placed upon some watch tower, there to sit a careful spectator of the earth.
1821. Shelley, Adonais, xiv. Morning sought Her eastern watch-tower.
1912. E. Russell, Maitland of Lethington, iii. 72. Knox clung to St. Giles; he could have no better watch-tower.
c. transf. (See quot.)
1864–5. J. G. Wood, Homes without H., vi. (1868), 113. To enable the spider to see objects in its front a sort of little turret rises from the cephalothorax and on its summit are placed the eyes. Naturalists familiarly call this projection the ‘watch-tower.’
† 2. A pharos or lighthouse. Obs.
1601. Holland, Pliny, XXXVI. xii. II. 578. The use of this watch-tower, is to shew light as a lanthorne, and give direction in the night season to ships, for to enter the haven, and where they shall avoid barrs and shelves.
1632. Lithgow, Trav., VII. 324. For the commodity of Saylers the … King builded a watch-towre of white Marble.
1757. W. Wilkie, Epigoniad, VI. 186. As when a watch tower’s light, Seen thro’ the gloom of some tempestuous night, Glads the wet mariner.
1804. W. L. Bowles, Spir. Discov., II. 233. Strangers … whose bark Has foundered nigh, where the red watch-tower glares Through darkness.
