Spying

How to spell spying

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce spying

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does spying mean?

1. verbSecretly watching someone or gathering information, especially in a covert or intrusive way.

Spying in a sentence

• The neighbour accused him of spying on her garden through the fence.

• The agency was caught spying on rival companies to steal their plans.

Where does spying come from?

Language of origin: French

The word traces back to the Old French verb espier, meaning 'to watch' or 'to observe closely', which the French in turn borrowed from a Germanic source related to the same root that gives modern German spähen, 'to spy out' or 'scout'. English took the verb in the 1200s, dropping the initial e to leave 'spy', and the noun and verb have shared the spelling ever since. The form 'spying' simply adds the -ing ending used for ongoing action, and it is worth noting that the y is kept rather than changed to i: unlike words such as 'spied', adding -ing to a verb ending in y after a consonant leaves the y in place, so it is spying, not spiing. The same family produced 'espionage' and 'espy', both still carrying the original sense of careful, secret watching.

How the word is built

• spy (to watch secretly)
• -ing (present participle / gerund suffix)