I actually just learned from a different HN thread yesterday [1] that aliases do get expanded if you add this to your shell's rc file: alias watch='watch '

I actually just learned from a different HN thread yesterday [1] that aliases do get expanded if you add this to your shell's rc file: alias watch='watch ' Specifically, if an alias ends with a space, it will cause the subsequent arg to be expanded as well. For example, try running: alias beep=echo watch beep hello # This will fail alias watch='watch ' watch beep hello # Now it works! [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31830879 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31830879