1488 (c1478) Hary Actis & Deidis Schir William Wallace (Adv.) (1968–9) xi. l. 626 Off the out wach thus chapyt thai wnseyn.

1518 in J. Imrie et al. Burgh Court Bk. Selkirk (1960) 47 All man..to wak all the nycht quhill daye, thair out wachis put ous [as] afferis be sycht of the balyeis.

1572 Extracts Rec. in W. Chambers Charters Burgh Peebles (1872) 351 The auld taxt to be..gadderit in, and to pay the owtwautchis thairwith.

a1600 ( W. Stewart tr. H. Boece Bk. Cron. Scotl. (1858) I. 532 The out watchis of thame rycht sone wes war, And persauit thame.

c1626 H. Bisset Rolment Courtis (1920) I. 52 This castell..wes sa straitlie keiped..with in watche and out watche that na man gatt ische and entrees.

c1650 J. Spalding Memorialls Trubles Scotl. & Eng. (1850) I. 206 Being espyit be the Kingis out watches.

1690 in Coll. N.Y. Hist. Soc. (1869) 2 169 The Forty Maquass..came here, and Tendered their Service to go and be the Outwatch, and to spy the Enemy.

1852 E. Bulwer-Lytton My Novel III. ix. iii. 12 He occasionally sallied forth upon a kind of outwatch or reconnoitring expedition.

1866 A. C. Swinburne Poems & Ballads 276 Nor with outwatch of many travailings Come to be eased of the least pain he hath.

1607 T. Dekker Whore of Babylon sig. E2 Yet for all the Moones That I haue seene waxe olde, and pine for anger, I had outwatched them.

1645 J. Milton Il Penseroso in Poems 40 Or let my Lamp at midnight hour, Be seen in som high lonely Towr, Where I may oft out-watch the Bear.

1706 R. Estcourt Fair Example iii. i. 27 With how much Cost, Labour, and Application do some Men study to know what is past? Out-watch the Moon, try the twinkling Stars, to obtain an useless Knowledge?

1728 E. Young Love of Fame: Universal Passion (ed. 2) vii. 175 His eye..inur'd to wake, And outwatch every star, for Brunswick's sake.

1833 J. F. W. Herschel Astronomy ii. 44 To outwatch a long winter's night.

a1856 J. G. Percival Fragment in Poet. Wks. (1859) I. 279 I have thus often sat, and deep in thought Outwatched the stars; have seen their fires grow dim, Till the young morning stood upon the hills.

1906 C. M. Doughty Dawn in Brit. II. viii. 214 And loud Thy name; as they outwatch the night, Resounds, O Christ, on this far heathen coast!

1975 W. H. Myers Human Personality i. 2 As each one of those great sciences was in its dim and poor beginning, when a few monks groped among the properties of ‘the noble metals’, or a few Chaldean shepherds outwatched the setting stars.

1625 B. Jonson Fortunate Isles in Wks. (1640) 130 Outwatcht, Yea, and out-walked any Ghost alive.

1668 Earl of Orrery Mustapha 71 Out-watch the Jealous, and the Lunatick, Out-fast the Penitential, and the Sick.

1693 H. Higden Wary Widdow iii. 30 I out watch him and play'd him Blind, and then managed him at my one discretion.

1794 G. Colman Mountaineers ii. iii. 22 I cannot sleep, the leaves are newly pull'd, and as my burning body presses them, their freshness mocks my misery, that frets me, and then I cou'd out watch the lynx.

1861 C. Dickens Great Expectations II. xix. 320 The Spider, doggedly watching Estella, outwatched many brighter insects, and would often uncoil himself and drop at the right nick of time.

1872 O. W. Holmes Poet at Breakfast-table iv. 17 The old man of West Cambridge, who outwatched the rest so long after they had gone to sleep in their own churchyards.

1987 Washington Post (Nexis) 18 Feb. c8 The second night in a row that the nation's capital had outwatched the rest of the nation.