verbverb espies, verb espying, verb espied

• Catch sight of.

  ‘she espied her daughter rounding the corner’

  More example sentences

  • ‘‘I want that,’ my sister Molly says, espying my purchase.’
  • ‘We espy the professor and his assistant in the distance and amble over to them.’
  • ‘Later, I am in a supermarket, and I espy a former teacher whom I did not like.’
  • ‘If I espy a weed trying to masquerade as one of my plants I just yank it out.’
  • ‘This afternoon, whilst I was chatting to an elderly couple who wanted directions to somewhere, my eyes wandered to the car park verge and espied a single solitary daffodil blooming in the late winter sun.’

  Synonyms

  perceive, make out, pick out, detect, recognize, notice, observe, see, spot

  View synonyms