überwachten

Überwachten is the simple past tense (Präteritum) form of the German verb überwachen. The base verb überwachen means to monitor, supervise, or oversee something or someone. As a past tense form, überwachten appears in narrative or formal writing when describing actions that occurred in the past, such as police or authorities monitoring a situation, or a system being watched over a period of time.

Grammatical notes: überwachen is a regular (weak) verb. The Präteritum forms include ich überwachte, du überwachtest, er überwachte, wir überwachten, ihr überwachtet, sie überwachten. The form überwachten can be found wherever the subject is in the plural or in the first-person plural, e.g., wir überwachten or sie überwachten. By contrast, the past participle used with haben is überwacht (as in Wir haben den Verkehr überwacht). The word überwachten itself is therefore a finite verb form, not a standalone noun, and is typically found in written past-tense narration.

Usage and context: The term and its past-tense form are common in reporting, legal texts, crime or security reporting, and any prose describing past monitoring activities. It appears with objects such as Überwachung, Überwachungsmaßnahmen, or the monitored subject, e.g., den Verdächtigen, den Verkehr, oder eine IT-Infrastruktur. The related noun Überwachung refers to the act or system of monitoring.

Etymology and related forms: überwachen combines the prefix über- (over, through) with wachen (to watch). Related terms include Überwachung (surveillance), überwacht (past participle/adjective), and weitere Konjugationen derived from überwachen.