How to Use watchman in a Sentence

watchman

noun
  • A watchman stopped them at the gate.
  • Arnold said his client didn’t know why there wasn’t a watchman or what the cause of the fire might be.
    San Diego Union-Tribune, 19 Sep. 2019
  • Well, there might be an opening as a night watchman on the docks.
    Whitney Tower, Town & Country, 5 Feb. 2014
  • The men then put the water canisters into the boot of the car, the NEI watchman said.
    Anna Coren, CNN, 14 Sep. 2021
  • One of the six crew members was supposed to have served as a night watchman.
    Kris Van Cleave, CBS News, 5 Sep. 2019
  • The term Jack-o'-lantern comes from the idea of a night watchman, who would light the street lanterns every evening, CNN noted.
    Elizabeth Berry, Woman's Day, 8 July 2022
  • The name jack-o’-lantern can also be derived from the night watchman who would light the street lanterns every evening.
    CNN, 13 Oct. 2021
  • There are night watchmen trudging through the snow and a lamplighter with his ladder and lantern.
    Roberta Smith, New York Times, 1 June 2017
  • In the city of Lausanne, near the French border, a watchman climbs to the top of a cathedral’s bell tower to call out the time every hour.
    Jen Kirby, Vox, 14 June 2019
  • The police briefly detained a night watchman, but then released him.
    Aurelien Breeden, New York Times, 23 Feb. 2018
  • Moore’s opus was about the extent to which people place their trust in costumed avengers and asked the age-old question of who watches the watchmen.
    David Sims, The Atlantic, 22 Oct. 2019
  • The night watchman at a restaurant across the street runs a hose every other day to their house to fill up buckets of water.
    Washington Post, 20 Nov. 2019
  • His father, James, was a night watchman and laborer who died when Franklin was 11.
    New York Times, 23 Dec. 2021
  • One, in New York City, missed the judge who was apparently its object but killed a night watchman.
    Adam Hochschild, Washington Post, 28 Sep. 2022
  • Manhattan’s main fire alarm was a bell in the City Hall copula tolled by a watchman who scanned the low skyline for licks of flame.
    Edward Kosner, WSJ, 25 Jan. 2022
  • Trump is their neighborhood watchman, rattling all the doors to make sure they’re firmly shut.
    Washington Post, 24 Aug. 2020
  • Even after all that has unfolded in Kherson in the past nine months, Mr. Skvortsov, the watchman, seems deeply moved by what happened that night.
    Jeffrey Gettleman Finbarr O’Reilly, New York Times, 3 Dec. 2022
  • The great difference is that the watchman is now a willing accomplice.
    Fintan O’Toole, The New York Review of Books, 12 June 2020
  • He is accused of failing to train his crew, conduct fire drills and post a roving night watchman on the boat when the fire ignited.
    CBS News, 18 Oct. 2022
  • One version occurs at the old rifle range, where the watchman — also armed with a rifle — wakes from the assault to find his weapon bent in half.
    Aaron Gilbreath, Longreads, 25 Apr. 2018
  • Over the years the canals were filled, and the house evolved to meet the needs of the city, also serving as a tool shed for park staff, a watchman’s lodge, and a temporary holding cell for Park Police.
    From Usa Today Network and Wire Reports, USA TODAY, 27 Apr. 2022
  • In time, Joel moved to Columbia and was hired on as a night watchman at the Joyful Alternative.
    Outside Online, 5 Nov. 2018
  • Greco was standing in as night watchman the evening of his death, charging documents said.
    Jeff Parrott, Anchorage Daily News, 30 Oct. 2019
  • Six horses escaped with the help of a night watchman; the other 19 died, and the barn burned to the ground, taking an adjacent veterinary barn and the siding on the house across the street with it.
    Perry A. Farrell, Detroit Free Press, 11 Sep. 2017
  • This one looks like the night watchman at an animal processing plant.
    Alex Beggs, Bon Appétit, 2 Nov. 2019
  • Church watchman Maru Gebremariam said the dead have been buried in mass graves and have not been given a proper burial.
    Sohel Uddin, ABC News, 23 June 2021
  • On the two occasions when a security officer stopped by to check on the hangars, the watchman used a walkie-talkie to warn the others to stay quiet.
    Wired, 17 Oct. 2019
  • Although no watchman patrols this maze of valuable knowledge, the patron does not feel safe.
    Seija Rankin, EW.com, 26 May 2020
  • Moreover, the department depended on a system of watchmen perched in high places to spot the first glints of an inferno.
    Margaret Talbot, The New Yorker, 2 Oct. 2023
  • For anyone wondering who will watch the watchmen, Musk claimed the system would be self-correcting thanks to his decision to open his programming code up for public scrutiny.
    Bychristiaan Hetzner, Fortune, 30 Oct. 2023

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'watchman.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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