different between watching vs spectation

English

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /?w?t???/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?w?t???/
• Rhymes: -?t???

Verb

watching

1. present participle of watch

Noun

watching (plural watchings)

1. The act of one who watches.
   • 1819, John Edwards Caldwell, Christian Herald and Seaman's Magazine (volume 6, page 225)

     What toils and pains; what cares and watchings; how many reproofs, restraints, and corrections; how many prayers, and sighs, and tears, are employed and suffered, before this hard task can be accomplished?

Hyponyms

• whale watching

Derived terms

• Sun-watching

English

Etymology

From Latin spectatio.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /sp?k?te???n/

Noun

spectation (uncountable)

1. (archaic, rare) Regard; aspect; appearance.
   • 1672 Gideon Harvey, Morbus Anglicus, Or, The Anatomy of Consumptions

     This simple spectation of the lungs is differenced from that which concomitates a pleurisy.

2. (rare) The act of watching something; observation.
   • 1996, David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest, Abacus 2013, p. 34:

     the medical attaché is permitted to ease effortlessly from unwound spectation into a fully relaxed night's sleep, still right there in the recumbent recliner […]

Further reading

• spectation in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.

Anagrams

• constipate, copatients