See Also: ATTENTION, PROTECTIVENESS, SCRUTINY

1. Followed [by keeping eyes fixed on other person] … like someone studying a historical figure —Lawrence Durrell
2. Had a way of looking around … as if hidden cameras were photographing her —Ann Beattie
3. He watched her as a cat does a mouse —James Howell

   Of all the comparisons linked to watchfulness this is probably the most famous and enduring, dating back to 1624. In Robert Louis Stevenson’s Kidnapped it appears as “We sat at table like a cat and a mouse, each stealthily observing the other.”

4. Hovering like an old bird over one egg —Eudora Welty
5. (Each evening I) peered surreptitiously through the kitchen curtains, like a spinster keeping tab on her neighbors —W. P. Kinsella
6. Vigilant as cat to steal cream —William Shakespeare
7. Watched as if from a cat’s distance —Martin Cruz Smith
8. Watched him like musicians watching the conductor —Wilfrid Sheed
9. Watched … like a warden —Anon

   The warden comparison has gained considerable currency in the last decade or so. Two recent novels in which it appeared are Disturbances in the Field, by Lynne Sharon Schwartz: “Kept watch like a warden” and Riders, by Jilly Cooper: “Watching him like a warden.”

10. Watched, like Indians at a corral —Etheridge Knight
11. Watched me like a fish hawk —James Crumley
12. Watched … tensely, like a spider lying in wait for the fly’s last drop of blood —Heinrich Böll
13. (My mother) watches me for signs of bloom and decay, like a plant —Daphne Merkin
14. Watchful as a ferret —R. Wright Campbell
15. Watching me like a bloodhound after a convict —Shelby Hearon
16. Watching [someone’s looks and moves] … with an attention as intense as if an ordeal involving my life depended on them —Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
17. Watch (tensely) like a cat stationed near a bird feeder —Bobbie Ann Mason
18. Watch … like a dead white moon —Ross Macdonald
19. Watch … like a nursemaid —Nicholas Monsarrat
20. Watch like one who fears robbing —William Shakespeare
21. Watch like ravens on a tree branch —R. Wright Campbell