spy

Pluralspies

Formsspies, spying, spied

1. 1
   nouncountable

   A person who secretly observes the actions of individuals or organizations and gathers information about them, usually to gain an advantage.

   The government arrested a spy who had been selling military secrets to a foreign power.

   She worked for years as a spy, reporting on factory output from inside the company.

   Similaragent, operative, mole, informer, informant

   Note

   The word began as a verb of looking. Middle English spien was a clipped form of espien, from Old French espier, and goes back to a Germanic root meaning 'see, look', kin to German spähen. A spy is a watcher whose watching is hidden. Intelligencer is an older name for the same figure. The noun pairs naturally with betray, as in Theodore Roethke's 'spies betray / Old secrets' (1941), and with rogue, as in The Economist's 'a rogue spy on the run'.

2. 2
   verbintransitive

   To operate as a spy, secretly observing others and gathering information for an advantage.

   They were recruited to spy for a foreign intelligence service.

   He spied for both sides throughout the conflict, trusted by neither.

   Note

   The verb of the trade is intransitive, so it leans on prepositions. You spy on a target ('Russia and America would each spy on each other') and spy for a master. Its past is spied, with the y becoming i as in spies. That spelling is shared with the 'catch sight of' verb, which needs no preposition and takes its object directly.

3. 3
   verbtransitive

   To catch sight of something; to spot or notice it, especially at a distance.

   Hikers often spy deer grazing in the meadow at dawn.

   He spied the lighthouse beam just before the fog closed in.

   Similarspot, glimpse, see, notice, sight

   Oppositemiss, overlook

   Note

   Here secrecy drops away, and only eyes and an object remain: you spy a deer, a beam of light, a face. This is the sense closest to espy, the longer form spy was clipped from, and the two have long overlapped. Hugh Latimer in 1536 urged his hearers to 'spy what things are to be reformed', and Keats's 'Child, I spy thee!' (1818) is plain seeing, with nothing hidden in it.

4. 4
   verbtransitive

   To explore, inspect, and examine a place secretly, such as a country or enemy territory, in order to gather information.

   The general ordered men to spy the coastline for possible landing sites.

   Two scouts spied the valley before the rest of the company moved through.

   Similarscout, reconnoiter, survey, explore

   Note

   Territory is the natural object here: a country, a coastline, a valley ahead of an army. The sense lives on most firmly in the idiom spy out the land, which has widened from scouting ground to sizing up any situation before acting. Unlike the intransitive spying verb, it takes the place itself as its object, with no on between them.

5. 5
   verbintransitive

   To search narrowly and with close attention; to scrutinize.

   The auditor spied minutely into the accounts, hunting for irregularities.

   Careful reviewers spy into the smallest discrepancies before approving a report.

   Similardelve, probe, pry, look

   Note

   Here the looking turns into prying, and it travels with a preposition: one spies into something rather than simply spying it. Shakespeare's Iago confesses in Othello that it is his nature's plague "to spy into abuses," and that his jealousy shapes faults that are not there. That into-construction is what separates this sense from the plain "catch sight of" meaning, which takes a direct object.

6. 6
   nouncountable

   A defensive player assigned to cover an offensive backfield player man-to-man, ready in case that player runs with the ball instead of giving it up right away.

   The defensive coordinator assigned a spy to track the scrambling quarterback all game.

   Without a spy watching him, the mobile quarterback gained yards on nearly every play.

   Note

   Football borrowed the word for a defender whose job is mostly watching. Instead of chasing the ball, the spy shadows one backfield player, typically a mobile quarterback or running back, and acts only if that player keeps the ball and runs. The name follows the secret watcher: the threat is observed first and answered second. A team without one leaves a scrambling quarterback free to gain yards.

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