Word.ws English Dictionary

spye

spye is the obsolete spelling of spy.

Meaning of spy

Verb

spy (third-person singular simple present spies, present participle spying, simple past and past participle spied)

  1. (intransitive) To act as a spy.
    • During the Cold War, Russia and America would each spy on each other for recon.
  2. (transitive) To spot; to catch sight of; to espy.
    • I think I can spy that hot guy coming over here.
  3. (intransitive) To search narrowly; to scrutinize.
    • (As I confeſſe it is my Natures plague / To ſpy into Abuſes, and of my iealouſie / Shapes faults that are not)c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Othello, the Moore of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac...
  4. (transitive) To explore; to see; to view; inspect and examine secretly, as a country.

See all 6 meanings of spy

Forms of spye

third-person singular presentspyes
present participlespyeing
past participlespyed
pastspyed

Questions about spye

What is spye the obsolete spelling of?
Spye is the obsolete spelling of spy.

Words near spye in the dictionary

  1. spycore
  2. spycraft
  3. spyder
  4. spyders
  5. spydom
  6. spye
  7. spyed
  8. spyeing
  9. spyes
  10. spyess
  11. spyesses

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: spye (page history and authors); spy (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “spye.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/spye. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.