[-ING2.] That watches; observant, vigilant, unsleeping.
Beowulf, 1268. Se æt Heorote fand wæccendne wer wiʓes bidan.
c. 1000. Eccl. Inst., in Thorpe, Anc. Laws (1840), II. 400. Þæt ʓe mid wæccendre ʓymen ʓehycgen.
a. 1586. Sidney, Ps. XVII. ix. Up, Lord … And bring to naught those watching pawes.
c. 1680. R. Fleming, Fulfilling Script., II. vi. (1726), 315. A watching providence over the church.
1728. Ramsay, Falling of a Slate, v. But watching sylphs flew round, To guard dear Madie from all skaith.
1848. Dickens, Dombey, xlvii. He … kept his watching eyes that way.
1902. Daily Chron., 24 July, 5/2. Hence the interesting spectacle of a class rivalry has not been presented to a watching nation.
Hence Watchingly adv. rare.
1552. Huloet, Watchyngelye, uigilanter.
1851. Wm. Gardner Blackwood, A Flower for the Grave of Little Lucy, iii., in Charleston Courier, 27 Nov., 2/5.
| Lucy, the cradle waits silently now, | |
| That, rocking, invited thy innocent sleep, | |
| And the chamber where angels bent watchingly low, | |
| Is darkling, while there one like Rachel doth weep. |
