Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.

Definition: Supervise |
SuperviseVerb1. Watch and direct; "Who is overseeing this project?". 2. Keep tabs on; keep an eye on; keep under surveillance. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "supervise" was first used: 15th century. (references) |
Synonyms: SuperviseSynonyms: manage (v), monitor (v), oversee (v), ride herd on (v), superintend (v). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Conduct | Conduct; manage, supervise; (direct). |
Direction | Superintend, supervise; overlook, control, keep in order, look after, see to, legislate for; administer, ministrate; matronize; have the care of, have the charge of; be in charge of, have charge of, take the direction; boss, boss one around; pull the strings, pull the wires; rule; (command); have the direction, hold office, hold the portfolio; preside, preside at the board; take the chair, occupy the chair, be in the chair; pull the stroke oar. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Supervise |
| English words defined with "supervise": administer, administrate ♦ bank commissioner, build ♦ coach ♦ election commission ♦ Orderly officer, organisation, organization ♦ police commissioner ♦ Regarder ♦ Survise ♦ train ♦ zoning commission. (references) |
| Etymologies containing "supervise": Survise. (references) |
| Domain | Title |
Books |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit | Thumbnail | Description & Credit |
![]() | Oregon. Independence, Polk County. Hop farmer's sons, washing for noon meal on back porch. They supervise the migratory workers in the field and tend to the weighing of hops. Credit: Library of Congress. | ![]() | War nursery schools. Scranton, Pennsylvania.These youngsters may not be able to sing an aria but they are having a good time in a war nursery school in Scranton, which is one of four in this community. Child care centers meet a critical need for supervise. Credit: Library of Congress. |
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
| Author | Quotation |
Benjamin Disraeli | To supervise people, you must either surpass them in their accomplishments or despise them. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | |
| Author | Date | Quotation |
Treaty of Versailles | 1919 | It will take delivery of the arms, munitions and war material, will select the points where such delivery is to be effected, and will supervise the works of destruction, demolition, and of rendering things useless, which are to be carried out in accordance with the present Treaty. (reference) |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Business | In one major city appointed Chinese clergy supervise worship services. (references) | |
JBIC, on the other hand, must supervise RCGs to follow the procedures. (references) | ||
Regional waste management plans are drawn up by these boards, which also coordinate and supervise environmental monitoring. (references) | ||
Civil Liberties | China | For each faith, there is a government-affiliated association to monitor and supervise its activities. (references) |
Slovak Republic | Three boards, appointed by a majority vote of Parliament, supervise radio and television broadcasting. (references) | |
Mongolia | Under the law, the Government may supervise and limit the number of places of worship and clergy for organized religions; however, there were no reports that the Government did so during the period covered by this report. (references) | |
Economic History | Bulgaria | The courts have often been unwilling to supervise trustees. (references) |
Venezuela | Both foreign and local bank regulators now supervise these foreign-owned banks. (references) | |
Turkey | The BRSA was established in August 2000 to monitor and supervise Turkey's banks under the new law. (references) | |
Human Rights | Turkey | The law gives prosecutors far-reaching authority to supervise the police during an investigation. (references) |
Georgia | Prosecutors continued to direct investigations, supervise some judicial functions, and represent the state in trials. (references) | |
Suriname | The law requires warrants, which are issued by quasi-judicial officers who supervise criminal investigations, for searches. (references) | |
Political Rights | Senegal | In 1997 the Government created the ONEL to supervise and oversee elections. (references) |
Central African Republic | In 1999 the Government established an Independent Electoral Commission (CEMI) to supervise the presidential election. (references) | |
Cameroon | The law provides for the Observatory to supervise electoral procedures from the registration of voters to the collection of reports after the polls; all polling stations are expected to have a representative from the Observatory. (references) | |
Trade | Moldova | In addition, a state commission on securities markets has been created to supervise the activity of securities market participants. (references) |
Croatia | The new banking law, implemented in January 1999, provides greater authority to the CNB to supervise and enforce banks' performance. (references) | |
Ukraine | As a licensee, the enterprise can hire its own personnel to supervise the submission of customs declarations, but the customs official actually approves final clearance. (references) | |
Women | Saudi Arabia | However, in hospital settings and in the oil industry, women and men work together, and, in some instances, women supervise male employees. (references) |
Saudi Arabia | In 1995 the Ministry of Commerce announced that women would no longer be issued business licenses for work in fields that might require them to supervise foreign workers, interact with male clients, or deal on a regular basis with government officials. (references) | |
Worker Rights | Bahamas | The Department of Labor must supervise the vote. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| Speaker | Phrase(s) |
Dennis Miller | Enron taught us we can't trust the regulators who are supposed to supervise it. |
Mark Geragos | Supervised probation means you have a probation officer. The probation officer will tell you to do this or do that or will supervise, in this case, community service. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| "Supervise" is generally used as a lexical verb (infinitive) -- approximately 87.55% of the time. "Supervise" is used about 466 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Lexical Verb (infinitive) | 87.55% | 408 | 13,799 |
| Lexical Verb (base form) | 10.94% | 51 | 47,619 |
| Noun (singular) | 1.5% | 7 | 133,076 |
| Total | 100.00% | 466 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
supervise | 20 |
supervise people | 3 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "supervise"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Afrikaans | kontroleer (audit, check, check up on, verify). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Albanian | mbikëqyr (overlook, oversee, watch), kontrolloj (check, control, examine, go through, guard, inspect, look over, make certain, master, perambulate, peruse, probe, ransack, review, revise, search, superintend, take charge of, take stock, verify, watch), drejtoj (address, administer, administrate, aim, aim at, align, Aline, bend, boss, canalize, Cann, carry on, chair, channel, command, con, conduct, direct, drive, funnel, govern, guide, head, keep, lead, level, manage, navigate, operate, order, pilot, point, preside, rectify, refer, rein, relegate, rule, set, shirk, shoot, show, shunt, superintend, tend, train, unbend, vector). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Arabic | ناظر (agitate, beholder, caretaker, headmaster, joust, principal, superintend), أشرف على بحث, أشرف على (overhang, overlook, oversee, preside), راقب (blue pencil, case, close, control, keep an eye on, look, look after, look on, mind, monitor, observe, overlook, oversee, proctor, spy, stake, superintend, tend, watch). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Bulgarian | ръководя (administer, administrate, be in charge of, boss, carry on, conduct, control, direct, guide, keep, lead, manage, mastermind, moderate, oversee, pioneer, rule, run, tutor, work), наглеждам (look after, monitor, superintend, watch over), надзиравам (inspect, manage, overlook, oversee, stand over, superintend). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Chinese | 董 (director, to direct), 督 , 監察 , 监督 (Oversaw, Oversee, Overseeing, Overseen, supervised, supervising, supervisory). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Czech | vést (administer, captain, carry on, channel, conduce, conduct, convey, direct, give, go, head, keep, lead, look, run, Shepherd, spearhead, steer, stock, throw, wage, walk, wheel), dozírat (invigilate, oversee, superintend), dohlížet (inspect, look after, oversee, superintend), řídit (administrate, conduct, control, direct, drive, fly, govern, guide, handle, head, keep, lead, manage, manoeuvre, navigate, operate, order, pilot, preside, regulate, steer, wield). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Danish | kontrolere (audit, check, check up on, verify). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Dutch | controleren (audit, check, check up on, verify), checken (audit, check, check up on, verify), aflezen (audit, check, check up on, read, read out, verify). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Esperanto | kontroli (audit, check, check up on, verify). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Faeroese | kanna (accredit, audit, check, check up on, examine, explore, investigate, jug, pitcher, research, study, verify), hava eftirlit við (audit, check, check up on, verify). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Farsi | نظارت کردن (Address, Administer, Control, Proctor), رسیدگی کردن (Attend, Audit, Check, Inquire, Inspect, Verify), برنگری کردن . (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Finnish | tarkastaa (audit, check, check up on, examine, go through, inspect, look over, observe, review, revise, test, verify, watch). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
French | surveiller (superintend). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Frisian | kontrolearje (audit, check, check up on, verify). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
German | kontrollieren (audit, check, check on, check up on, control, examine, inspect, monitor, to control, verify), beaufsichtigen (guard, inspect, invigilate, keep, look after, mind, nurse, observe, oversee, superintend, to invigilate, to oversee, to superintend, to supervise), überwachen (audit, check, check up on, guard, keep, keep a watch on, look after, monitor, observe, oversee, patrol, police, to observe, to oversee, verify, watch, watch over). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Greek | επιβλέπω (overlook, oversee, superintend, watch over). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hebrew | לפקח (control, inspect, oversee, superintend, tend), ל"ש'יח (care, look after, look out, monitor, notice, oversee, regard, tend, watch). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hungarian | felülvizsgál (check up, reconsider, to check up, to reconsider, to review, to supervise, to survey, to vet), felügyel (inspect, invigilate, overlook, oversee, superintend, to control, to mind, to see after, to superintend, to supervise, to tend). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Indonesian | mengawasi (administer, control, oversee), membawahi (be under). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Italian | vigilare (control, keep watch, observe, oversee, watch, watch over), verificare (ascertain, audit, check, check up on, come true, control, happen, overhaul, predictate, prove, toggle, try, verify), controllare (audit, check, check up on, command, control, control oneself, examine, govern, inspect, monitor, overlook, school, verify, vet). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Japanese Kanji | め括り'やる (to control, to supervise), 統べる (to control, to supervise), 統べる (to control, to supervise), 取り まる (to control, to manage, to supervise). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Japanese Katakana | すべる (to control, to glide, to slide, to slip, to supervise), しめくくり'やる (to control, to supervise), とりしまる (to control, to manage, to supervise). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Korean | 감독하십시". (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Manx | stiurey (captain as team; guidance, captain; guidance, command, control, controllability, direct, direction, guide, handle, handling, helm, lead, manage, manipulate, manipulation, navigate, navigation, pilot, piloting, regulate, regulation, rudder, steer, steering, superintendence, supervision), oaseiraghey (oversee, superintend). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Papiamen | kontrolá (audit, check, check up on, verify), chèk (audit, check, check up on, cheque, verify). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Pig Latin | upervisesay supervisionar (overlook, verify), inspecionar (examine, inspect, look, overhaul, overlook, oversee, perambulate, review, survey, verify, view), fiscalizar (check, invigilate, police, superintend, verify). (various references) supraveghea (chaperon, direct, keep under, keep watch, look after, manage, observe, overlook, oversee, see, superintend, watch), economisi (administer, economize, put in the box, save, scrape), controla (audit, check, control, direct, examine, govern, inspect, intercept, observe, oversee, prove, restrain, rule, sift, test, verify), conduce (accompany, administer, be in command, boss, boss the show, captain, carry on, charge, command, conduct, control, convey, direct, drive, escort, govern, guide, handle, head, husband, lead, lead the way, manage, master, operate, order, overrule, pilot, preside, restrain, rule, run, sail, see, see off, show, show up, steer, superintend, take, wield). (various references) надзирать (overlook, oversee), заведовать (be head, manage, superintend), просматривать (browse, browse in, browse through, look over, look through, peruse, revise, run over, search through, skim, skim over, skim through). (various references) nadgledati (monitor, oversee). (various references) controlar (audit, censor, censure, check, check up on, control, direct, get under, monitor, talk down, talk through, verify), revisar (audit, check, check over, check up on, examine, go over, inspect, look at, look over, overhaul, revise, service, verify, vet), registrar (audit, check, check up on, clock, enrol, enroll, enter, examine, file, inspect, list, look through, minute, record, register, ring up, schedule, search, show, tackle, verify, write down). (various references) kontrollera (audit, check, check out, check up, check up on, control, go over, monitor, screen, verify, visit). (various references) yönetmek (administer, administrate, boss, captain, celebrate, chair, command, conduct, direct, edit, govern, head, lead, oversee, police, preside, produce, rule, run, run the show, steer), nezaret etmek, idare etmek (administer, administrate, bestride, boss, conduct, content oneself, control, direct, govern, guide, handle, husband, look after, make both ends meet, make do, make it do, make out, make shift, manage, manipulate, mastermind, officer, quarterback, rein in, rub, rub along, rule, scrape along, spin out, steer), gözetmek (guard, oversee, protect, study, tend), denetlemek (audit, check, control, examine, inspect, oversee, superintend), bakmak (answer, attend, behold, care for, concern oneself, consider, consult, deem, do for, face, feed, fend for, find, Foster, front, front on to, give a look, groom, have a frontage on, have a look-see, keep, look, look after, look at, look on, look out, look through, look upon, maintain, make sure, nurse, overlook, put out to nurse, refer, regard, scan, see, see to, set eyes on, sight, sit in, suckle, superintend, support, survey, take a gander, take a look, take a look at, tend, turn up, view, wait on, wait upon, watch). (various references) контролювати (check, command, control, monitor, police, rule, superintend), наглядати (oversee), завідувати (operate). (various references) goruchwylio (oversee). (various references) ukuhlola (audit, check, check up on, verify). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Language | Period | Translations |
| Latin | 500 BCE-Modern | super. (various references) |
| Avestan | 200-600 | aiwyâxshayeiñti. (various references) |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "supervise": supervised, supervises. (additional references) | |
Words containing "supervise": unsupervised. (additional references) | |
| |
"Supervise" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: Saperavi, Supadriv, supervize. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "supervise" (pronounced suw"pervī'z) |
| 3 | -v ī' z | collectivize, improvise, televise. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "e-e-i-p-r-s-s-u-v" | |
-1 letter: previses. | |
-2 letters: peruses, previse, prevues, pussier, reissue, revises, seisure, suspire, uprises, vespers, viruses. | |
-3 letters: espies, issuer, peises, perses, peruse, pisser, prevue, prises, purees, purses, reives, reuses, revise, revues, rupees, seiser, series, serves, severs, sieurs, sieves, sirees, sirups, sivers, speers, speirs, speise, spiers, spires, sprees, sprues, supers, uprise, verses, versus, vesper, vipers. | |
-4 letters: erses, issue. | |
| Words containing the letters "e-e-i-p-r-s-s-u-v" | |
+1 letter: percussive, persuasive, pulverises, supervised, supervises, superwives. | |
+2 letters: herpesvirus, suppressive. | |
+3 letters: oversupplies, percussively, persuasively, perviousness, previousness, repercussive, sempervivums, superlatives, supermassive, unexpressive, unimpressive, unpersuasive, unresponsive, unsupervised. | |
+4 letters: herpesviruses, purposiveness, repulsiveness, superventions, unprogressive. | |
+5 letters: disruptiveness, imperviousness, overpersuasion, percussiveness, persuasiveness, perviousnesses, previousnesses, productiveness, protrusiveness, superachievers, superexpensive, supergravities, supersensitive, supportiveness, unresponsively. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Commercial | 5. Images: Photo Album 6. Quotations: Familiar 7. Quotations: Historic 8. Quotations: Non-fiction | 9. Quotations: Spoken 10. Usage Frequency 11. Expressions: Internet 12. Translations: Modern | 13. Translations: Ancient 14. Derivations 15. Rhymes 16. Anagrams | 17. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.