Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • transitive verb To examine or observe with great care; inspect critically.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To subject to scrutiny; observe or investigate closely; examine or inquire into critically; regard narrowly.
  • Synonyms Explore, etc. See search.
  • To make scrutiny.
  • Also spelled scrutinise.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • intransitive verb To make scrutiny.
  • transitive verb To examine closely; to inspect or observe with critical attention; to regard narrowly.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb transitive To examine something with great care.
  • verb transitive To audit accounts etc in order to verify them.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb examine carefully for accuracy with the intent of verification
  • verb to look at critically or searchingly, or in minute detail

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From scrutiny +‎ -ize.

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Examples

  • We do pay the Congress to "scrutinize" things like this, but unfortunately, their corporate benefactors pay them much more to let the corporations do the "scrutinizing" for them.

    Propeller Most Popular Stories 2009

  • We do pay the Congress to "scrutinize" things like this, but unfortunately, their corporate benefactors pay them much more to let the corporations do the "scrutinizing" for them.

    Propeller Most Popular Stories 2009

  • Congress - the very entity which authorized fractional reserve banking and the Federal Reserve ability effectiveyl control our economy - is now going to "scrutinize" it?!?

    Original Signal - Transmitting Digg 2009

  • If you scrutinize both, you can probably figure it out based on button size and the slight difference in the bevels, but if you have to use the word "scrutinize," then the UI design has already failed.

    MacUser 2008

  • If Obama didnt have anything questionable in his past, didnt have suspicious relationships with people of who are at best, unethical (and thats being kind by most standards) then there wouldnt be a need, would there, for any media to "scrutinize" him?

    The Imperfect Blog 2008

  • In his charge to jurors, Trafford instructed them to "scrutinize" her testimony with "the greatest of care. . .

    Thestar.com - Home Page Betsy Powell 2010

  • In his charge to jurors, Trafford instructed them to "scrutinize" her testimony with "the greatest of care. . .

    Thestar.com - Home Page Betsy Powell 2010

  • If the Japanese feel they have threats in the neighborhood, as they do with North Korea and China, they tend to scrutinize our alliance.

    The Good Fight Walter F. Mondale 2010

  • She has little paper trail; she was never a judge and has no judicial opinions to scrutinize and has written relatively few law review articles.

    The Conservative Assault on the Constitution Erwin Chemerinsky 2010

  • If the Japanese feel they have threats in the neighborhood, as they do with North Korea and China, they tend to scrutinize our alliance.

    The Good Fight Walter F. Mondale 2010

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