Meaning & use
supervising
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“supervising” is a form of “supervise”. See that entry for the full set of meanings.
Meanings
verbtransitive
Watching over people or their work, giving directions and checking that things are done properly.
Grammar: Takes an object: she is supervising the interns.
Patterns
- supervise someone
- supervise something
- supervise someone doing something
She is supervising a team of six nurses on the night shift.
He spent the summer supervising the repair of the school roof.
Two teachers are supervising the children while they swim.
verbtransitive
Guiding a student through a piece of advanced research, such as a thesis, as the academic responsible for it.
Grammar: Takes an object: supervising a thesis or a doctoral student.
Patterns
- supervise someone's thesis
- supervise a student
Dr. Okafor is supervising three doctoral students this year.
Who is supervising your thesis on river pollution?
Word forms
| base form | supervise |
|---|---|
| third person singular | supervises |
| past tense | supervised |
| past participle | supervised |
| -ing form | supervising |
Common combinations
- supervising a team
- He enjoys supervising a small team of designers.
- closely supervising
- The foreman was closely supervising every cut the apprentices made.
- supervising the construction
- She is supervising the construction of the new library.
- supervising children
- Parents took turns supervising children at the playground.
- supervising officer
- The supervising officer signed off on the report.
Synonyms and how they differ
- oversee
- Oversee is a little more formal and suggests watching a whole project from above rather than checking individuals.
- manage
- Manage covers wider duties such as budgets and planning, while supervising focuses on watching and directing the work itself.
- monitor
- Monitor means keeping a check on something, often without giving orders, whereas supervising includes directing people.
- direct
- Direct stresses giving instructions and leading, while supervising also includes watching to make sure things are right.
Opposites
Word family
- supervise verb
- to oversee people or work
- supervision noun
- the act of overseeing
- supervisor noun
- a person who oversees others
- supervisory adjective
- relating to oversight, as in a supervisory role
- unsupervised adjective
- not watched over by anyone
Commonly confused: supervising or surveying?
supervising vs surveying
Surveying means looking over or measuring an area or opinions, whereas supervising means directing people or work.
Practice
Maya is ___ the volunteers at the food bank this weekend, so she checks that every task is finished properly.
Choose one answer.
Supervising means directing and checking people's work. Supplying means providing goods, which would not take volunteers as its object in this sense.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “supervising”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.