Definition of "watchfulness"
watchfulness
noun
countable and uncountable, plural watchfulnesses
The state or quality of being watchful; alertness, vigilance or wakefulness.
Quotations
Every dark form in the dimness had its ominous quality, its peculiar suggestion of alert watchfulness.
1896, H[erbert] G[eorge] Wells, “chapter 9”, in The Island of Doctor Moreau (Heinemann’s Colonial Library of Popular Fiction; 52), London: William Heinemann; republished as The Island of Doctor Moreau: A Possibility, New York, N.Y.: Stone & Kimball, 1896, page 82
The steady rhythm of the engines, the fact that he had been sleeping badly, the boredom of a flight that he had done so many times before and did not want to do again, the long humiliation and unhappiness that was always in the background of his mind, all fought against his watchfulness.
1944, Neville Shute, chapter 4, in Pastoral, London: Heinemann