sighting

Pluralsightings

1. 1
   nouncountable

   An occasion when someone spots something, particularly something people have been searching for.

   The rare warbler drew crowds of birdwatchers after its first sighting in decades.

   Each confirmed sighting of the comet was logged by observatories around the world.

   Similarobservation, glimpse, detection, spotting

   Note

   Most often a counted thing: one report that someone has seen it. Wildlife agencies receive sightings, observatories log them, and they arrive by the dozen. The noun therefore takes an article and a plural freely, as in a first sighting or more than a dozen sightings. What was seen follows with of, as in a sighting of a seal. When the thing is missing or rare, each report is an event worth counting.

2. 2
   verb

   Present participle of sight.

   Birdwatchers spent the morning sighting rare migrants along the shore.

   Sighting the enemy fleet on the horizon, the lookout sounded the alarm.

   Note

   The participle carries every meaning of the verb sight, not only spotting. Surveyors and navigators are sighting when they check direction or levelness through an instrument. A shooter sighting a rifle is adjusting its sights or aiming along them. Like any -ing verb, it takes its object directly (sighting the enemy fleet), where the noun for a reported glimpse needs of.

   The surveyor was sighting the boundary marker through his level.

   He stood sighting along the barrel at a distant target.

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