Spied

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To have surveilled or collected sensitive data regarding a person or situation without their awareness
2. To have noted or scrutinized the activities or behaviors of someone covertly for information
3. To have watched someone or something in a secretive manner ; to have caught sight of something faintly or from afar

Etymology: "Spied" is simply the past tense and past participle of "spy," so its story is really the story of the verb. The most surprising part is that "spy" once meant something quite different. In Old English, the word for a spy was "sċēawere," which literally meant "watcher," and that same word also meant "mirror." The verb it displaced, "sċēawian," meant "to watch" and survives today as the modern word "show." "Spy" itself arrived as a shortened form of the Middle English "espien," meaning "to espy," or catch sight of something. Its roots lie in Old French and ultimately in Latin "speculari," "to observe," and it is related to German "spähen" and Dutch "spieden," both meaning "to spy." The Latin-derived noun "speculator" and the Greek "katáskopos," meaning one who looks down upon or inspects, are distant cousins of the same family.

Synonyms: observed, watched, saw, noted, perceived

Antonyms: ignored, overlooked, missed, disregarded, neglected