spy
Definitions
General English
- noun a person who is paid to try to
find out
secret
information
about
theenemy
or a rival group - verb to work as a spy
- verb to watch
someone
insecret
, tofind out
what
they
areplanning
to do
Law
- noun somebody who tries to find out secrets about another country
Military
- noun a person who secretly tries to obtain
information
about
theenemy
, or about a foreign power - verb to act as a spy
Politics
- noun a person who watches, listens or investigates secretly to get information about another country, or a rival organisation
- verb to watch, listen to, or investigate another country or rival organisation secretly to get information
Origin & History of “spy”
A spy is etymologically someone who ‘looks’. The word was adapted
from
Old French espie ‘watcher, spy’, a derivative of espier ‘watch, spy’ (fromwhich
English
gets theverb
spy, andalso
espy (14th c.) and espionage (18th c.)).this
in turn was formed from the borrowed Germanic base *spekh- (source of German spähen ‘reconnoitre, watch’ and Swedish speja ‘spy, scout’), which went back ultimately to Indo-European *spek- ‘look’ (source of English inspect, spectator, etc).