police
verb/pəˈliːs/
/pəˈliːs/
Verb Forms
| present simple I / you / we / they police | /pəˈliːs/ /pəˈliːs/ |
| he / she / it polices | /pəˈliːsɪz/ /pəˈliːsɪz/ |
| past simple policed | /pəˈliːst/ /pəˈliːst/ |
| past participle policed | /pəˈliːst/ /pəˈliːst/ |
| -ing form policing | /pəˈliːsɪŋ/ /pəˈliːsɪŋ/ |
- police something (of the police, army, etc.) to go around a particular area to make sure that nobody is breaking the law there
- The border will be policed by UN officials.
- police something (of a committee, etc.) to make sure that a particular set of rules is obeyed synonym monitor
- The profession is policed by its own regulatory body.
- The government has called on newspapers to police themselves.
- These sort of regulations are very difficult to police.
Word Originlate 15th cent. (in the sense ‘public order’): from French, from medieval Latin politia ‘citizenship, government’, from Greek politeia ‘citizenship’, from politēs ‘citizen’, from polis ‘city’. Current senses date from the early 19th cent.
Check pronunciation:
police