spy

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A person who secretly collects information about an enemy country, company, or person.

   The spy passed secret documents to the enemy.

2. 2
   verb

   To secretly watch someone in order to find out information.

   He was caught spying on his neighbours.

3. 3
   verb

   To suddenly notice or catch sight of something.

   I spied my friend across the crowded room.

Common collocations

• spy satellite Noun + noun

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…

Topics

External links

• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary
• Google Images