ppl. a. [f. WATCH v. + -ED1.] Kept under close observation. † Also, of a hawk, that is kept awake (see WATCH v. 16).
1566. T. Nuce, Studley’s Agamemnon, Upon the same 4. And hys request was suche: How that, to paynfull laboured stuffe my mynd I wolde annex: And do but as his watched worke, whych he doth here contex Deserues.
1627. E. F., Hist. Edw. II. (1680), 84. [The Scots] in a watch’d opportunity set upon the tail of his Army.
1650. B., Discolliminium, 34. Most that are out of the Army will ere long be as gentle as any watch’d Hawke.
1901. Wide World Mag., VI. 421/2. How to get Diaz out of the watched room was a very awkward problem indeed.
absol. 1901. J. H. McCarthy, If I were King, iv. Suddenly, when the tension of watcher and watched was keenest, there came a mighty crashing at the door.
b. Proverb.
1848. Mrs. Gaskell, Mary Barton, xxxi. What’s the use of watching? A watched pot never boils.
