- watchful
- watchful, vigilant, wide-awake, alert are comparable when they mean on the lookout especially for danger or for opportunities. Watchful is the general word{
the five watchful senses— Milton
}{became almost remote, strangely watchful, looking back from time to time as though they were being followed— Malamud
}Vigilant implies keen, courageous, often wary, watchfulness{be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour—7 Pet 5:8
}{we should be eternally vigilant against attempts to check the expression of opinions that we loathe— Justice Holmes
}Wide-awake stresses keen awareness, more often of opportunities and relevant developments than of dangers{merchants who . . . were . . . wide-awake and full of energy— van Loon
}Alert stresses readiness or promptness in apprehending and meeting a danger, an opportunity, or an emergency{not only watchful in the night, but alert in the drowsy afternoon— Pater
}{our wits are much more alert when engaged in wrongdoing . . . than in a righteous occupation— Conrad
}Contrasted words: *careless, heedless, thoughtless, inadvertent
New Dictionary of Synonyms. 2014.
