Oversight, n.
1. Watchful care; superintendence; general supervision.
2. An overlooking; an omission; an error. Hooker.
3. Escape from an overlooked peril. [R.] "His fool-happy oversight." Spenser.
Syn. -- Superintendence; supervision; inspection; overlooking; inadvertence; neglect; mistake; error; omission.
Shades of meaning
A person may look over a matter in order to survey it carefully in its entirety, or he may look over it with no attention to the thing itself because his gaze and thought are concentrated on something beyond; oversight has thus two contrasted senses, in the latter sense denoting inadvertent error or omission, and in the former denoting watchful supervision, commonly implying constant personal presence; superintendence requires only so much of presence or communication as to know that the superintendent's wishes are carried out; the superintendent of a railroad will personally oversee very few of its operations; the railroad company has supreme direction of all its affairs without superintendence or oversight. Control is used chiefly with reference to restraint or the power of restraint; a good horseman has a restless horse under perfect control; there is no high character without self-control. Surveillance is an invidious term signifying watching with something of suspicion. Compare care; neglect.