Espies

Part of speech: verb, noun

Definitions

1. To conduct secret monitoring or surveillance on someone or something
2. To act as an informant by gathering information discreetly about others
3. To engage in the covert act of watching or discovering details, typically for a specific purpose

Etymology: Espies is simply the third-person singular present of "espy," which is a doublet of "spy": two English words that descend from the same ancient root by different routes. The root is a Proto-Indo-European verb meaning to look or observe, which passed into Germanic as a word for peering and then into Frankish. From there it reached Old French as "espier," meaning to watch, and Middle English borrowed it in several forms. The two words split because English took the verb twice. "Espy" arrived through Old French, keeping its fuller shape, and it has long meant simply to catch sight of something. "Spy" came in more directly and took on the sharper sense of secret observation. Middle English "espie" was also a noun for covert scouting, a secret plot, or a person who scouted, so the older English usage was already close to the modern sense of gathering information on others. Both words share a Latin relative, "speciō," meaning to look at or watch, which shows how far the family of this root spreads across European languages.

Synonyms: observes, watches, notices, detects, discovers

Antonyms: ignores, overlooks, misses, neglects, disregards