watch over

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watch over (third-person singular simple present watches over, present participle watching over, simple past and past participle watched over)

1. (idiomatic) To guard and protect.

   She stayed up all night to watch over the sick infant.

   • 1967, Richard Brautigan, All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace:

     I like to think / (it has to be!) / of a cybernetic ecology / where we are free of our labors / and joined back to nature, / returned to our mammal / brothers and sisters, / and all watched over / by machines of loving grace.

• vigil

• overwatch