scrutiny

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

• noun Close, careful examination or observation.

from The Century Dictionary.

• To scrutinize.
• noun Close investigation or examination; minute inquiry; critical examination.
• noun Specifically
• noun In the early church, the examination in Lent of catechumens, including instruction in and questions upon the creed, accompanied with prayers, exorcisms, and other ceremonies, prior to their baptism on Easter day.
• noun One of the three methods used in the Roman Catholic Church for electing a Pope.
• noun In canon law, a ticket or little paper billet on which a vote is written.
• noun An examination by a competent authority of the votes given or ballots east at an election, for the purpose of rejecting those that are vitiated or imperfect, and thus correcting the poll.
• noun Synonyms Investigation, Inspection, etc. (see examination), sifting. See search, v.

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

• noun Close examination; minute inspection; critical observation.
• noun (Anc. Church) An examination of catechumens, in the last week of Lent, who were to receive baptism on Easter Day.
• noun (Canon Law) A ticket, or little paper billet, on which a vote is written.
• noun (Parliamentary Practice) An examination by a committee of the votes given at an election, for the purpose of correcting the poll.
• transitive verb obsolete To scrutinize.

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

• noun Intense study of someone or something.
• noun Thorough inspection of a situation or a case.
• verb obsolete, rare To scrutinize.

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

• noun a prolonged intense look
• noun the act of examining something closely (as for mistakes)