spy

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spy

noun agent, detective, emissarius, explorator, informer, intelligence agent, intelligencer, lookout, observer, reconnoiterer, reporter, scout, seeret agent, sleuth, snoop, snooper, source, speculator, undercover agent, undercover man, watcher
Associated concepts: espionage

spy

verb behold, catch sight of, descry, detect, discover, discover by artifice, distinguish, eavesdrop, espy, examine secretely, follow, glimpse, innpect secretely, look at, look for, make a reconnaissance, make out, make secret observations, observe, peep, peer, perceive, pry, recognize, reconnoiter, scrutinize, search out, see, shadow, sight, snoop, speculari, spy upon, take note, trail, view, watch, watch secretely

SPY. One who goes into a place for the purpose of ascertaining the best way of doing an injury there.
2. The term is mostly applied to an enemy who comes into the camp for the purpose of ascertaining its situation in order to make an attack upon it. The punishment for, this crime is death. See Articles of War, 1 Story's Laws U. S. 992; Vattel, Droit des Gens. liv. 3, Sec. 179.

References in classic literature ?

And that will not be long, it is to be hoped," said Porthos; "for they have this morning hanged a spy who confessed that the Rochellais were reduced to the leather of their shoes.

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If a secret piece of news is divulged by a spy before the time is ripe, he must be put to death together with the man to whom the secret was told.

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Ulysses was glad when he heard it and prayed to Minerva: "Hear me," he cried, "daughter of aegis-bearing Jove, you who spy out all my ways and who are with me in all my hardships; befriend me in this mine hour, and grant that we may return to the ships covered with glory after having achieved some mighty exploit that shall bring sorrow to the Trojans.

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And if he's a German spy he didn't write it, well--because it doesn't give information to Germany.

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The French, the spy reported, having crossed the Vienna bridge, were advancing by forced marches toward Znaim, which lay sixty-six miles off on the line of Kutuzov's retreat.

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You are a spy and spies must die if they are caught.

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In the crew of the fishing boat that conveyed them across San Pablo Bay was a spy.

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If you have taken advantage of my hospitality to spy upon me and my actions, if indeed you have a mission here, then you can carry it with you down into hell

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I applied it to him with the deliberate conviction that his vocation in life was the vocation of a spy.

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That the spy will fabricate his information is a mere commonplace.

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It is neither generous, nor honourable, nor the act of a true man to play the spy,' said Edward.

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That night, and the next, and the next again, the spy sat booted and equipped in his carter's dress: ready to turn out at a word from Fagin.