Link Centre Dictionary

spy

UK/spaɪ/ US/ˈspaɪ/ common
verb (3) noun (2)

verb

1.
2.
3.

secretly collect sensitive or classified information; engage in espionage

  • “spy for the Russians”

noun

1.

(military) a secret agent hired by a state to obtain information about its enemies or by a business to obtain industrial secrets from competitors

Synonyms
2.

a secret watcher; someone who secretly watches other people

  • “my spies tell me that you had a good time last night”

Origin

From Middle English spien, aphetic variant of earlier espien (“to espy”), from Old French espier (“to spy”), from Frankish *spehōn (“to spy”), from Proto-Germanic *spehōną (“to see, look”), from Proto-Indo-European *speḱ- (“to look”). Akin to German spähen (“to spy”), Dutch spieden (“to spy”). The noun displaced native Old English sċēawere (literally “watcher”), which was also the word for "mirror." In this sense, the verb displaced Old English sċēawian, which was also the word for "to watch" and became the Modern English word show. Distant cognate vie PIE with Latin speculātor, Ancient Greek κατάσκοπος (katáskopos). Compare typologically Russian согляда́тай (sogljadátaj) (akin to гляде́ть (gljadétʹ)).

Phrases

  • I spy
  • I spy with my little eye
  • spy cop
  • spy dust
  • spy money
  • spy on
  • spy out
  • spy ring
  • spy satellite

Related words

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Entails

WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.