Home English to Spanish spy

Translation of spy in Spanish:

spy

espía, n.

Pronunciation /spaɪ/ /spʌɪ/

See Spanish definition of espía

nounplural spies

  • 1

    espía masculine, feminine
    (plane/satellite/ship) (invariable adjectivebefore noun) espía
    (story) de espías
    (story) de espionaje
    spy ring — red de espionaje

intransitive verb spies, spying, spied

  • 1

    (watch secretly)
    espiar
    to spy on sb — espiar a algn
    • He often spied on her, watching from the shadows, observing her every gesture.
    • A reporter has been arrested outside the home of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie for spying on the star couple with binoculars..
    • To pass the time, he spies on his neighbours, watching the real-life soap opera in the building across from his.
    • He was spying on Selina, watching her every move.
    • These people are regularly keeping watch on them and spying on their movements.
    • Mr Barrett believes the cameras are being misused, to spy on motorists parking, rather than watching out for crime.
    • One of his favorite tricks is to call the people he's spying on and describe what he is observing through his telescopic lens.
    • For once we didn't pretend we weren't spying on each other.
    • Unions at City Hall have accused Council bosses of breaking the law by spying on employees using CCTV cameras and other means.
    • Most people would agree that spying on one's neighbors is detestable.
    • Jeez, you'd think I was some kind of little old lady hanging around by my window all day, spying on the neighbours.
    • As one review put it, reading this book is like spying on your friends when they didn't know you were there.
    • It had gotten to the point where I was starting to suspect my own friends of spying on me.
    • This team is trying to make the quality of all our lives better and are certainly not going around spying on anyone.
    • Social network analysis could be used for something more useful than spying on employees.
    • She's there to spy on her cheating husband.
    • A growing number of employers are installing cameras and software to spy on you.
    • He got his family to spy on her if he was out of the house.
    • The chips transmit signals and civil liberties groups fear the technology could eventually be used to spy on consumers.
    • Thanks to a new range of high-tech monitoring tools, it is now easier than ever to spy electronically on your children.
    • He liked the knowledge that he could spy on his neighbors if he ever needed to.

  • 2

    (work as spy)
    espiar
    to spy on sth/sb — espiar algo/a algn
    he spied for both sides — espiaba para ambos bandos
    • The Army has charged him with five offenses: sedition, aiding the enemy, spying, espionage and failure to obey a general order.
    • If they are spying for a commercial competitor, the situation is different.
    • The charges against them have been dropped from spying to ‘illegal information collection’, although the new charge still carries a possible jail sentence.
    • People knew that the CIA was partly about spying, and they had vague, romantic notions about spies borrowed from Ian Fleming and Graham Greene novels.
    • Last year's debate on intelligence reform should have centered on espionage, which we call human intelligence, or HUMINT, or spying.
    • The pirate Jean Laffite and his men were paid to scout, spy, and sometimes fight for Gen. Andrew Jackson during the War of 1812.
    • Burgess, Maclean, Philby and Blunt spied out of political conviction.
    • If he did agree to work for the rebels and became a double agent, spying for the CAS, he'd get two paychecks.
    • The Einstein dossier serves as a useful reminder of the scope of FBI spying.
    • But was she really a sleeper agent recruited by her brother to spy for the Russian NKVD?
    • Although these tools make it easier to spy, undercover agents still have to turn up at the right place at the right time in order to collect the information.
    • Government agencies have not yet been able to prevent spying and the exchange of information by agents.
    • Both men were charged with spying, destabilising society, and publishing false information.
    • On this basis, they have said, Anthony Blunt was considered to have committed treason by spying for the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
    • He joins a multinational corporation in order to spy for them and is persuaded to become a double agent for a rival corporation, even though he doesn't know what they do, or what they want.
    • The sinister, murky world of espionage is laid bare in this revised and updated edition of Philip Knightley's powerful book about spies and spying in the 20th century.
    • It's one thing to know in theory that governments always spy on each other, quite another to see set out in a memo the detail of how the spying will be done.
    • Most had spied for money, but some spied out of ideological motives, and others because of grudges against their superiors.
    • He spied for the Russians and is now serving a life sentence.
    • A short time ago, we spoke with a defense analyst who told us about other countries that are doing some spying of their own.

transitive verb spies, spying, spied

  • 1

    descubrir
    ver
    to play 'I spy' — jugar al veo-veo
    • I spy with my little eye something beginning with 's' — veo, veo una cosa que empieza con 's'