supervised

1. 1
   adjective

   Carried out while a person in authority watches over and directs the activity.

   Inmates are allowed supervised access to the library each afternoon.

   The chemistry students completed a supervised experiment with hazardous reagents.

   Similarcontrolled

   Oppositeunsupervised, unmonitored

   Note

   Placed before a noun, as in supervised access or a supervised experiment, the participle stops reporting an event and starts describing a condition. That shift makes it gradable: an arrangement can be more supervised or most supervised, which the verb form in a past-tense clause cannot be. A quick test is whether more fits. If it does, the word is working as an adjective.

2. 2
   verb

   Past participle of supervise.

   The construction crew was supervised by an experienced foreman.

   Volunteers had supervised the playground before the new rules took effect.

   Note

   The form does double duty in verb phrases. With have it builds the perfect (they have supervised the site), and with be it builds the passive (the site was supervised). Because supervise takes a direct object, the passive comes naturally. The spelling matches the simple past. An obsolete use of the verb meant to read something over, so in older prose a supervised letter may simply have been perused.

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