Past tense of spy
regular verb
The past tense of spy is spied. The past participle is also spied.
Forms of spy
| Base form (V1) | spy /spaɪ/ |
|---|---|
| Past tense (V2) | spied |
| Past participle (V3) | spied |
| Present participle | spying /ˈspaɪ.ɪŋ/ |
| Third person singular | spies /spaɪz/ |
Spied in a sentence
- The next person they spied was a Bandicoot carrying a watermelon.1918, Norman Lindsay, The Magic Pudding, page 68
- Once he'd spied out my weaknesses, he'd know how to apply pressure.From the entry once
- She spied on him in the shower and glimpsed his manhood.From the entry manhood
- She suffered psychotic episodes during which she believed herself to be spied upon by light bulbs.2014, Ian McEwan, The Children Act, Penguin Random House (2018), page 152. From the entry psychotic
- God above, this man was as chiseled as the statues she'd spied in the Louvre.2011, Tara Kingston, Claimed by the Spymaster, page 68. From the entry louvre
Meaning of spy
- noun A person who secretly watches and examines the actions of other individuals or organizations and gathers information on them (usually to gain an advantage).
- noun A defensive player assigned to cover an offensive backfield player man-to-man when they are expected to engage in a running play, but the offensive player does not run with the ball immediately.
- verb To act as a spy.
Questions about the past tense of spy
- What is the past tense of spy?
- The past tense of spy is spied.
- What is the past participle of spy?
- The past participle of spy is spied.
- Is spy a regular or irregular verb?
- Spy is a regular verb: its past tense changes -y to -ied.
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: spy (page history and authors) and the entries of its forms. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws left out forms marked obsolete, archaic, rare or dialectal and added the examples. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this page: “Past tense of spy.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/past-tense/spy. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.