spyhop
spyhop noun: the action of raising the front half of the body out of the sea in a controlled manner.
Noun
spyhop (plural spyhops)
- The action of raising the front half of the body out of the sea in a controlled manner.
- In a more vigorous spyhop, the pectorals are exposed but are rarely brought completely out of the water. On occasion a whale respires during a spyhop.1986, Barbara C. Kirkevold, Joan S. Lockard, Behavioral Biology of Killer Whales, A.R. Liss, page 153
- Our cook aboard Varua once had a memorable experience when a curious whale swam under the ship and surfaced next to the galley porthole in a spyhop.1989, Cynthia D'Vincent, Voyaging with the Whales, McClelland & Stewart, page 116
- Synonyms:
- eye-out, head rise
Verb
spyhop (third-person singular simple present spyhops, present participle spyhopping, simple past and past participle spyhopped)
- To raise the front half of the body out of the sea in a controlled manner.
- Killer whales sometimes spyhop. To spyhop, they lift the front half of their body out of the water.2002, Anne Welsbacher, Killer Whales, Capstone High-Interest Books, page 14
- Many species of cetacean, especially those that frequent coastal waters, ‘spyhop’. They raise their heads slowly out of the water and look around. Spyhopping probably enables them to orient themselves or find the source of a disturbance.2006, Trevor Day, Whalewatcher, Marshall Editions, page 21
Examples of spyhop in a sentence
- A spyhop occurs when a whale remains stationary and upright while raising its head vertically out of the water, before sinking smoothly below the surface without much splash.2016, Mark Carwardine, Mark Carwardine's Guide to Whale Watching in Britain and Europe, 2nd edition, Bloomsbury:
- This is a very aerially active species, and killer whales often breach, spyhop, flipper-slap and fluke-slap; they often perform these behaviors in bouts.2008, Thomas A. Jefferson, Marc A. Webber, Robert L. Pitman, Marine Mammals of the World: A Comprehensive Guide to their Identification...
Synonyms of spyhop
- eye-out
- head rise
Forms of spyhop
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | spyhops |
| alternative form | spy hop |
| alternative form | spy-hop |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | spyhops |
| present participle | spyhopping |
| past participle | spyhopped |
| past | spyhopped |
Origin of spyhop
From spy + hop.
Words formed from spyhop
Questions about spyhop
- What does spyhop mean?
- Spyhop means the action of raising the front half of the body out of the sea in a controlled manner.
- How do you use spyhop in a sentence?
- A spyhop occurs when a whale remains stationary and upright while raising its head vertically out of the water, before sinking smoothly below the surface without much splash.
- What part of speech is spyhop?
- Spyhop can be a noun or a verb.
- What is the plural of spyhop?
- The plural of spyhop is spyhops.
Words near spyhop in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: spyhop (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.
Last updated:
Cite this entry: “spyhop.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/spyhop. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.