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Spying   /spˈaɪɪŋ/   Listen
Spying

noun
1.
Keeping a secret or furtive watch.
2.
The act of keeping a secret watch for intelligence purposes.  Synonym: undercover work.
3.
The act of detecting something; catching sight of something.  Synonyms: catching, detection, espial, spotting.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Spying" Quotes from Famous Books



... go to sleep. And no spying, as you're a gentleman. I'll talk reason to the poor fellow. I reckon it's going to be all right. We know that he's had shell shock and all the rest of it, so I dare say the law won't be ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts

... spying and prying after me," she cried passionately. "Why can I never have a moment to myself? Other people can, and ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch

... sir, to make sail and haul off from the shore by morning," observed his first mate. "It is well not to get nearer the Cuba coast than we can help. There are not a few low keys and sandbanks to bring us up; or one of the enemy's cruisers may be spying us, and it would give us a job to get ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston

... chance, there comes besmeared with blood About the chaps, a lioness all foaming from the wood, From slaughter lately made of kine to staunch her bloody thirst With water of the foresaid spring. Whom Thisbe, spying first Afar by moonlight, thereupon with fearful steps gan fly And in a dark and irksome cave did hide herself thereby. And as she fled away for haste she let her mantle fall, The which for fear ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick

... Morin found him in waiting just outside the threshold. With his finger on his lips, Pierre walked on tiptoe by his companion's side till they would have been long past sight or hearing of the conciergerie, even had the inhabitants devoted themselves to the purposes of spying ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell

... Friday morning, and as his daughters were in school, he stalked into Mrs. Crane's parlor to wait for them. Spying the piano, he sat down to it, and commenced producing a series of unearthly sounds, not altogether unlike the fashionable music of the present day. Mrs. Carrington chanced to be crossing the hall and, hearing the noise from the parlor, looked in. As her eye fell upon the strange-looking, giant ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes

... Chinese; and where I stopped at the little towns along the line it was a Japanese officer who came to inquire my name and nationality. When I was in Mukden the German consul there had just had two Chinese meddlers arrested for spying on his movements, only to find that they were acting under the direction of Japanese officials who claimed immunity for them! The fact that they have their soldiers back of them, and that they can be tried ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe

... you these ten years, I have spent money on you till my savings are all gone, to spare trouble to that poor M. Schmucke, crying like a child on the stairs—and this is my reward! You have been spying on me. God has punished you! It serves you right! Here I am straining myself to carry you, running the risk of doing myself a mischief that I shall feel all my days. Oh dear, oh dear! and the door ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac

... Spying the servant, who until now had seemed unable to move, he threw both arms around her, bringing the rat close to her face. Around the laboratory they danced to the tune of the woman's shrieks. The professor held on, and the woman yelled. Up and down spasmodically on the laboratory ...
— Advanced Chemistry • Jack G. Huekels

... people of the place, nor did he give over crying, till he woke them and they, seeing him, came up to him in haste. He held his ground till they drew near him and near the pit, when he turned and fled. So they looked into the pit and spying the wolf, fell to pelting him with heavy stones, nor did they leave smiting him with sticks and stones and piercing him with lances, till they killed him and went away; whereupon the fox returned to the pit and looking down, saw the wolf dead: ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume III • Anonymous

... glen, he was startled again by the strange voice crying, "Who, who, who are you?" He lay quite still, determined if possible to allow the voice to come, if it would, within sight. He heard it slowly coming up the glen. Each time it repeated the cry it sounded nearer. At last he saw spying at him through the boughs of the tree under which he was lying a large bird with soft, silky feathers of green and chestnut. "Who, who, who are you?" said the bird. Robinson could not help but laugh. He had been frightened at the cry ...
— An American Robinson Crusoe • Samuel B. Allison

... it to an unrecognizable pulp. Cards of introduction from French and English friends fared a similar fate. Their remains were disposed of in the shuffling that accompanied the arrival of new prisoners. This had to be done most craftily, for we never knew where were the spying eyes. ...
— In the Claws of the German Eagle • Albert Rhys Williams

... along, spying wonders, her eye was attracted by some balancing-toys, which a man was showing off at one of the corners. What a pleasant man he was, to set them spinning just to amuse little girls! Fly was delighted ...
— Little Folks Astray • Sophia May (Rebecca Sophia Clarke)

... Romans, no man fought more bravely than the Emperor Lucius. King Arthur, spying the marvelous feats of arms he performed, rode up and challenged him to a single combat. They exchanged many a mighty blow, and at last Lucius struck King Arthur across the face, and inflicted a grievous wound. Feeling the smart of it, King Arthur dealt ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various

... herself. "If I chose to dive into a tube station or board a motor-bus she couldn't stop me; and she can't go on watching me and intercepting my letters indefinitely. I suppose she will get tired of it after a while." But meanwhile she found the spying rather amusing. Avice popped up unexpectedly if she went near the front door; Wilfred's bullet head peeped in through the window whenever she fancied herself alone in the schoolroom. Only her attic was safe—since to spy upon it ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce

... not get particularly sharp-sighted all at once, either, papa," she replied, shaking her finger at him; "so don't you go spying into my little affairs, until I give you liberty. Dear papa, there is nothing to tell; when there is, you shall hear it the first thing," and she stooped again and ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth

... the morning between breakfast and lunch were the time which the inhabitants of Riseholme chiefly devoted to spying on each other. They went about from shop to shop on household businesses, occasionally making purchases which they carried away with them in little paper parcels with convenient loops of string, but the real object of these excursions ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson

... "Marget Aird!" cried Betsy, spying Marget and her brothers coming down the road. "Come along, Marget; you are on my side—on Don's side, I mean." At which poor Marget, a tall, fair girl, with sweet face and shy manner, blushed furiously, but, after greeting ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor

... went with great care, and only after spying well the land so that none should see and find the place of her treasure. If it were possible for the little ones' idea of their mother and the cow-boys' idea to be set side by side they would be found to have nothing in common, though both were right in their point of view. The ranchmen ...
— Johnny Bear - And Other Stories From Lives of the Hunted • E. T. Seton

... goddesses or mortal women. But in reverence for me and with fear in thy heart thou didst shrink from his love; and he then swore a mighty oath that thou shouldst never be called the bride of an immortal god. Yet he ceased not from spying thee against thy will, until reverend Themis declared to him the whole truth, how that it was thy fate to bear a son mightier than his sire; wherefore he gave thee up, for all his desire, fearing lest another should be his match and rule the ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius

... thin, pure white covered cup, all of the same make, originating from the 'Kuan' kiln. Miao Yue, however, soon gave a tug at Pao-ch'ai's and Tai-yue's lapels, and both quitted the apartment along with her. But Pao-yue too quietly followed at their heels. Spying Miao Yue show his two cousins into a side-room, Pao-ch'ai take a seat in the court, Tai-yue seat herself on Miao Yue's rush mat, and Miao Yue herself approach a stove, fan the fire and boil some water, with which she brewed another pot of tea, Pao-yue walked in. "Are you bent upon drinking ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... your choice two or three score lances, gentlemen and men-at-arms who are well mounted, and ride ever a day's march before the army, spying out the enemy and sending messengers constantly to us, as we shall send to you; for I trust not the Greek guides we have. So you shall save us all from the destruction that overtook the German Emperor in the ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford

... hands behind him, his head bent back on his high, narrow shoulders, spying the tracery on the columns and the pattern of the frieze which ran round the ivory-coloured walls under the gallery. Evidently, no pains had been spared. It was quite the house of a gentleman. He went up to the curtains, and, having discovered how they were worked, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... troglodytic life. They play cards and gossip and sleep in the shadows, and may not walk the streets. I had one glimpse of a dark crowded cellar. Now and then one sees a British soldier on some special errand; he keeps to the pavement, mindful of the spying German sausage balloon in the air. The streets are strangely quite and grass grows between ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells

... un seems to hev done it," he said with a coarse laugh. "Spying, that's what he was about. Now I'll give them ...
— Son Philip • George Manville Fenn

... Spying an extra choice bunch of grass a few steps to one side of the path, Brownie turned suddenly toward the valley; and the girl's eyes left the distant ridge for the little cabin and the sheep corral in Mutton ...
— The Shepherd of the Hills • Harold Bell Wright

... spying upon her, like some ignorant, jealous fool!" he told himself savagely. "Why, why, is it that I must always blunder upon such scenes, to make me miserable for days! Can it be—can it possibly be," he asked himself—"that she cares for the man; that she encourages ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart

... you put it there," said I. "But," I continued, fearing the dying man might suspect me of spying, and so fear he had mistaken my character—"but I did not mean to—I was on the ground when you came there that evening; and when I saw what you were doing, I could not move for fear of disturbing you. I know where to find it, and I can swear ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton

... should be lodged with the best order and caution possible, because he had news that the enemy were increasing every moment, and it was held to be certain that he would come here to assail the Spaniards, and because of this, the Governor caused the patrols and sentinels to be increased, always spying upon the progress of the enemy. After he had waited there another day for certain envoys whom the cacique Atabalipa had sent to learn what was going on in Xauxa, one came who told how the warriors were five leagues from Xauxa on the road from Cuzco and were coming ...
— An Account of the Conquest of Peru • Pedro Sancho

... and goes out. BEATRICE'S face darkens; she shivers. Taking out a little cigarette case, she lights a cigarette, and watches the puff's of smoke wreathe shout her and die away. The frightened MERCY peers out, spying for a chance, to escape. Then from the house STRANGWAY comes in. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... to go practically where we liked on board, but we were never able to get far away from the German sailors, who always appeared to be listening to our conversation, no matter where we were. As on the Wolf, they were sometimes caught spying on us, and listening at the portholes or ...
— Five Months on a German Raider - Being the Adventures of an Englishman Captured by the 'Wolf' • Frederic George Trayes

... that they found the Kaan well and safe. Then they presented the credentials and letters which they had received from the Pope, which pleased him right well; and after that they produced the Oil from the Sepulchre, and at that also he was very glad, for he set great store thereby. And next, spying Mark, who was then a young gallant,[NOTE 1] he asked who was that in their company? "Sire," said his father, Messer Nicolo, "'tis my son and your liegeman."[NOTE 2] "Welcome is he too," quoth the Emperor. And why should I make a long story? There was great rejoicing ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... frenzied man who swayed thousands with his hand stooped to deal with the smallest movements of one man and one woman. Despite his most intense desire to drive himself into other and higher channels, he found himself skulking and spying and conniving with but ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon

... impervious to anything save herself or a Barbary marmoset, twisted with marvelous ingenuity through the sharp-pointed leaves, and the close barriers of spines and launched herself with inimitable dexterity on to the other side of the cacti. Cigarette had too often played a game at spying and reconnoitering for her regiments, and played it with a cleverness that distanced even the most ruse of the Zephyrs, not to be able to do just whatever she chose, in taking the way she liked, and ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]

... broomsticks between their legs and flew away through the air, quickly disappearing against the blue sky. Blinkie, however, was so enraged at Pon and Trot that she hobbled on in the direction they had taken, fully determined to catch them, in time, and to punish them terribly for spying upon ...
— The Scarecrow of Oz • L. Frank Baum

... swarm of mice, spying Grimalkin afar, scamper quicker to their holes than do the youths of Templeton vanish before the distant view of Cresswell. Victor and vanquished, knowing and unknowing—all but one, fade to sight, and ere the monitor can stop the fight, the fight ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed

... I drew the light canoe up a foot or two on the beach, "it seems that you haven't been noways idle whilst I've been aloft there spying into the inimy's movements. I hardly knowed what to make of it when I first found the tents struck and 'most everything gone. But I'm glad in one sense that matters is so far for'ard, though I'm sorry ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood

... paused in the habitable room, spying through a crack in the wall. And Anthony stood with his eyes tightly closed, his head bowed. The image of the leashed hound came more vividly to her when ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand

... been spying on you," he explained. "I only recognized you a couple of minutes ago. I was walking about—taking a stroll before ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke

... clothes. The day was turning bright and clear, and away over the waste land towards Zennor you could see for miles. Tis the desolatest land almost in all Cornwall, and by keeping to the furze-brakes and spying from one to the next, he steered his patient down for the coast and brought him safe to the cliffs over Cawse Ogo. There in a lew place in the middle of the bracken-fern they seated themselves, and the doctor pulled out his pocket spyglass and searched the coast ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... put an end to it by lifting Calico tenderly out. Gently he dried the little trembling thing, and sat her down in her comfortable box once more, where Mrs. Cat at once cuddled down close beside her. Suddenly spying her sisters again, she made a fresh start only to be stopped by a well-directed slap from her mother's swift paw. "M'you, M'you!" snapped Mrs. Cat. "You just sit still for a while. I've had worry enough for one day, and I will not help you ...
— The Book of the Cat • Mabel Humphrey and Elizabeth Fearne Bonsall

... the ball out of the cannon's mouth, But now meseems I grow more timid than a crouching hair, Or a child spying some ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac

... King's enemies inside or out of the realm; it was at least certain that she no longer had men set to spy upon her, though it was noted that the Archbishop's gentleman, Lascelles, nosed about her quarters and her maids. But he was always spying somewhere and, as the Archbishop's days were thought to be numbered, he was accounted of little weight. Indeed, since the fall of Thomas Cromwell there seemed to be few spies about the Court, or almost none at all. It was known that ...
— The Fifth Queen Crowned • Ford Madox Ford

... upon him, as he recalled his effort, while Melrose was away in August, to make at least some temporary improvement in the condition of the Mainstairs cottages—secretly—out of his own money—by the help of the cottagers themselves. The attempt had been reported to Melrose by that spying little beast, Nash, and peremptorily stopped by telegram—"Kindly leave my property alone. It is ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... was deferentially smiling at his lordship's elbow, cast a swift glance at Gabriel when he heard Mrs Pansey's remark. He had a belief—founded upon spying—that Gabriel knew too much about the public-house mentioned, which was in his district; and this belief was strengthened when he saw the young man start at the sound of the name. Instinctively he kept his eyes on Gabriel's ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume

... night also, and I slept well. But once I woke with a fear for Owen on me, for I had dreamed that I saw some man creeping and spying along the wide ramparts of Norton stronghold. And it seemed that the man had a bow ...
— A Prince of Cornwall - A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler

... spying Werper at the first charge, bore down upon the Belgian, and the latter, terrified by contemplation of the fate he deserved, turned his horse's head and dashed madly away in an effort to escape. Shouting to a lieutenant to take command, and urging him upon pain of death to dispatch the ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... witch then took the deponent before her, and away they galloped to a place called Malkin Tower, by the Hoarstones at Pendle. He there beheld many persons appear in like fashion; and a great feast was prepared, which he saw, and was invited to partake, but he refused. Spying an opportunity, he stole away, and ran towards home. But some of the company pursued him until he came to a narrow place called "the Boggard-hole," where he met two horsemen; seeing which, his tormentors left ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... said Weld, the butcher's apprentice, "and when they comes out we'll hev more than one broken head in this street." The songs continuing, he cried again, "Come out, d-n ye." Weld had had more than his own portion of rum that day. Spying me seated on the gate-post opposite, he shouted: "So ho, Master Carvel, the streets are not for his Majesty's supporters to-day." Other artisans who were there bade him leave me in peace, saying that my ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... know?" he said roughly. "Without exception, you're the most inquisitive youngster! you must have your finger in every pie. Just turn yourself right over to the wall and go to sleep this minute; I won't have you spying on me!" ...
— We Ten - Or, The Story of the Roses • Lyda Farrington Kraus

... though only one of them has been preserved. The ones that are lost bear the following suggestive titles: On the Construction of Slings; On the Construction of Missiles; On the Automaton; On the Method of Lifting Heavy Bodies; On the Dioptric or Spying-tube. The work that remains is called Pneumatics, and so interesting a work it is as to make us doubly regret the loss of its companion volumes. Had these other books been preserved we should doubtless have a clearer insight ...
— A History of Science, Volume 1(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... while made it so difficult for the Allies to know what to do with the Venizelist army was the almost ridiculous ease with which, under the peculiar circumstances of its recruitment, it lent itself to spying purposes. All the Royalists, or their German paymasters, had to do to establish a spy in the Saloniki area was to send over one of their Intelligence Officers in the guise of a deserter from the Greek army to that of Venizelos, and there he was! To send back information, or even to return ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various

... and crying out in French to me, Pardone moy, je vous pree. Je suie un buon Chrestien.... Having a Soldier's minde to Rifle him, I searched for jewels, but found only five Pieces of Eight about him.' Here Fortune turned, for 'fourteen Spanish Muskateers, spying me so busy about one of their Countreymen,' came to his rescue, and Peeke was forced to yield himself prisoner. 'True Valour (I see) goes not aluaies in good Cloathes, for Don Juan (when my hands were in a manner bound behind me) ... wounded me through the ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote

... soldiers to his comrades—and the wind bore the words to Rosette—"you are fools to let that child pass! For aught we know, she may be spying for the rebels." ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various

... and shelf, And sees, each side, the good effects of it, A value for religion's self, A carelessness about the sects of it. Let me enjoy my own conviction, Not watch my neighbor's faith with fretfulness, Still spying there some dereliction Of truth, perversity, forgetfulness! Better a mild indifferentism, Teaching that both our faiths (though duller His shine through a dull spirit's prism) Originally had one color! Better pursue a pilgrimage Through ancient and through modern times To many peoples, various climes, ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke

... her, and Joe found himself straining to hear, although he despised himself for spying and eavesdropping, ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden

... be here to help us at the commencement. I said the Indians would attack in force, because they know our numbers. Those malo men have been spying on us when we little thought it. They know our strength to a gun, and they will come in a cloud that nothing can withstand, or that nothing could withstand in the open. But we will entrench and defend ourselves ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables

... negroes, who, spying us, came headlong to take our horses, we saw Sir William standing in the garden with an unknown lady. The baronet himself, walking a little heavily with his cane, approached us with hearty salutations, helped Daisy to unmount, and presented us to ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic

... adjustment to the earphones built into his helmet, and Soriki, operating the flitter com, could give him a guide as efficient as the spacer's radar! He need not fear being lost in the streets should he lose touch with those he was spying upon. ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton

... years she was sinking more deeply into slavery, while she was ruling others. Her slavery was to herself. She was the captive of her own vanity. Her love of admiration had developed into an insatiable passion. She was ceaselessly in her tower spying out for fresh lovers. From afar off she perceived them, and when they drew near to her castle she stopped them on their way. She did not love them and cast them to death like Tamara of the Caucasus. No; but she required of them ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens

... themselves with their faithful followers, at the beginning of Spring, to the wild inaccessible mountains of the Hartz; and there, according to their old custom, they offered prayers and fire to the incorporeal God of Heaven and earth. In order to secure themselves against the spying, armed converters, they hit upon the idea of masking a number of their party, so as to keep their superstitious opponents at a distance, and thus, protected by caricatures of devils, to finish in peace the pure worship ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... No. 2 Heather Road, which had come in sight; and, spying smoke come out of the chimney, laughed heartily at Stella's presentiment. So that it was a merry quartette, after all, which arrived at the new little house, and the sound of their young and joyous voices made Mrs. Hackney smile happily ...
— A City Schoolgirl - And Her Friends • May Baldwin

... he had arranged matters so that the invader should perish and the other should conquer (for he was continually in the company of Surena, on the pretext of spying), he led out the Romans, blinded by folly, to what he said was a victory in their very hands, and in the midst of the action joined the attack ...
— Dio's Rome • Cassius Dio

... here, young fellows, don't you go and blab what you've been spying on just now," remonstrated Mr. Henckley, a note of dismay ...
— Dick Prescotts's Fourth Year at West Point - Ready to Drop the Gray for Shoulder Straps • H. Irving Hancock

... practical applications now," said Greg. "Space drive and television spying. I don't know which is the best. Do you realize that with this television trick there isn't a thing that can be ...
— Empire • Clifford Donald Simak

... you. I prefer to do it myself," said Lena desperately. It was more than she could endure to have a strange girl spying out the nakedness of the land. Yet when the little maid said, "Vary well, ma'am," and walked into the next room, Lena wondered if she had made a mistake. She heard Miss Elton's cheerful address of the appalling ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter

... his eyes up until he was peering at Julius's excited features as if endeavoring to catch some transient color effect. "Frankly, you puzzle me," he said after a pause; "but come again to-morrow. And no tricks, no spying or that sort of thing! I am the wrong man for it. If you doubt me, ask some one who has heard of Felix Poluski. You see, Count Julius Marulitch, I am far more open than you. I knew you all the time, ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy

... commercial. Not on that account, however, would she change the essential principle of her action. On the contrary, she had but to utilize her habits of discipline, method, tenacity, minute care, precise information—and, we may add, of impertinence and spying—to which she owed the growth of her military power. She would thus equip herself with industry and commerce not less formidable than her army, and able to march, on their part also, in ...
— The Meaning of the War - Life & Matter in Conflict • Henri Bergson

... up on their house-tops spying, that morning, but there was nobody would keep their glass while I had none; so I went back armed, and part of it all I saw, and part of it father ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various

... Grace made an inspection of the cornfield and discovered the imprints of heavy boots in the soft dirt near the camp. There had been, she believed, four men in the party, and all four evidently had been spying on the Overland camp. She followed their trail until she came to the edge of the cornfield, facing the Thompson cabin. Grace shrugged her ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders Among the Kentucky Mountaineers • Jessie Graham Flower

... passage, Cherry-Cheeks caught my hand affrightedly and babbled, "Oh, sir, there's the ugliest beast you ever saw spying on her ladyship. Take your boots off, ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough

... Duke of Newcastle's grandson, if he can ever get a son, is to give a hundred thousand pounds. Then the delightfulness of having whole groves of humming-birds, tame tigers taught to fetch and carry, pocket spying-glasses to see all that is doing in China, with a thousand other toys, which we now look upon as impracticable, and which pert posterity would laugh in one's face for staring at, while they are offering rewards for perfecting discoveries, of the principles of which we have not the least ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole

... Spying into the but, he could see nothing at first, for a chimney was now between it and the moon. A moment more, however, and he descried something white in the dull iron gleam of the water. It was under the water, but ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald

... has been left as an object lesson, a complete museum in itself, wherein every daily incident of Pompeian life, every domestic secret, reveal themselves to our inquisitive eyes. Here in the roofless halls we can be taken from entrance to dining-hall, from atrium to sleeping rooms, spying into the minutest detail of shape, size and colour, as though we were seriously intending to rent the house for our own habitation. The last tenant has even left his money-chest in his hall, his pots ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan

... dark, moonless night, with a ring of frost in the air, and only a star or two set sparsely in the vault of heaven; and you will find a sight as stimulating as the hoariest summit of the Alps. The solitude seems perfect; the patient astronomer, flat on his back under the Observatory dome and spying heaven's secrets, is your only neighbour; and yet from all round you there come up the dull hum of the city, the tramp of countless people marching out of time, the rattle of carriages and the continuous jingle of the tramway bells. An hour or so before, the gas was turned on; lamplighters scoured ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... down the avenue to meet her. But she'd disappeared—she must have taken a short cut and come into the house by the side door. I don't know why I went on to the spring-house; I suppose it was what you'd call spying. I went up the steps and found the room empty; but two chairs had been moved out from the wall and were standing near the table; and one of the Chinese screens that lie on it ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton

... all right," she had murmured, but not in response to his flat refusal to obey her. She had been opening the double cupboard and the five drawers which constituted the receptacles of the scullery-larders; she had been spying out the riches and the poverty of the establishment. Then she had turned to him, and, instead of engaging him in battle, she had just smiled at him, and said: "Very well. As you wish. But do go into the front room, at ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett

... ever after! I was hardly five then, and going up to the nursery from downstairs had my supper-cake in my hand, only a few mouthfuls left. He had been having his bath, and was sitting up on Nan-nan's knee being got into his bed clothes; when spying me with my cake he piped to have a share of it. I dare say it would not have been good for him, but of that I thought nothing at all: the cruel impulse took me to make one mouthful of all that was left. He watched it go without crying; but his eyes opened at me in a strange ...
— An Englishwoman's Love-Letters • Anonymous

... I wanted to know! Many thanks, madame," and Fandor, grinning with satisfaction, made off in the direction of the Court of Assizes. He ran up the steps leading to the Council Chamber, and spying the messenger asked: ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre

... boats of the white men, vainly straining their eyes for glimpse of egress from the watery defile. A word, a laugh, the snatch of a voyageur's ditty, came back with elfin echo, as if spirits hung above the dizzy heights spying on the intruders. Springs and tenuous, wind-blown falls like water threads trickled down each side of the lofty rocks. The water was so deep that poles did not touch bottom, and there was not the width of a foot-hold between water and ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut

... words," he said, "since Black Meg does other things besides spying, and Adrian may have had business of his own with her which is no affair of mine. But, as they are spoke, I can't eat them, so you must decide which of ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard

... part of the whole thing. It was all very well for Alice to talk about creeping and spying, but, if you considered it without bias, there was nothing degrading about it at all. It was an art. It took brains and a genius for disguise to make a man a successful creeper and spyer. You couldn't ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse

... I saw the mysterious prisoner with whom I had been talking by aid of the mute alphabet, lounging at the door of his open cell smoking a cigar. This discovery startled me, and I decided to be more than ever on my guard. To my mind, which was becoming distracted, everyone appeared to be spying upon my actions. The mysterious prisoner looked across the corridor and saw me. Instantly his fingers commenced to move rapidly. I was talking to the gaoler, but was looking beyond him at the prisoner opposite, greedily taking ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney

... husband, whom she loved so much better than her child. Well, at least she had a heart! That was something. And if the pair still kept a little hotel, what of that? Was he such a mean wretch as to be ashamed because he was the son of a small hotel-keeper? Max began spying out in himself his faults and weaknesses, which, while he was happy and fortunate, he had never suspected. And now and then he caught the words running through his mind: "If only she is dead, the whole thing will be no more than a bad dream." What a cad he was! he thought. ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson

... a window or over the banisters. If they happened to be working in a room on the ground floor, or at a window on any floor, they knew that both Rushton and Hunter were in the habit of hiding among the trees that surrounded the house, and spying upon them thus. ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell

... your shyness and your waiting and your coldness! I hate you all, and I wish we were fighting with the Germans against you. Yes, I do—and I hope the Germans win. You never have any blood. You're all cold as ice.... And what do you mean spying on me? Yes, you were—sitting behind and spying! You're always finding out what we're doing, and putting it all down in a book. I hate you, and I won't ever ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole

... and sky that they see. Their eyes care little for the soft, changing colours of the ocean or the vast, contorted masses of the clouds. What they see, as they look seawards, is something more moving than the hue of the waves or the shape of the clouds; it is a suggestion of human love. They are spying for the boats that sailed away for the fishing; presently they will loom again on the horizon, laden with shrimp to the gunwales, and bringing home uncles and big brothers and fathers. The little fleet will soon appear yonder ...
— Child Life In Town And Country - 1909 • Anatole France

... more about you. Upon this, he remounted his Dromedary, and made the best of his Way towards the Village: But before he had got near a hundred Yards, he return'd upon an Out-cry that was made by four Couriers from Babylon. They rode full Speed. One of them, spying the young Widow, cried out. There she is, That's she. She answers in every Respect to the Description we had of her. They never took the least Notice of her dead Gallant, but secur'd her directly. Oh! Sir, cried she to Zadig, again and again, dear Sir, most generous Stranger, once more deliver ...
— Zadig - Or, The Book of Fate • Voltaire

... know I the wielding of my tough targe; therein I deem is stalwart soldiership. And I know how to charge into the mellay of fleet chariots, and how in close battle to join in furious Ares' dance. Howbeit, I have no mind to smite thee, being such an one as thou art, by spying thee unawares; but rather openly, if perchance ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)

... tell me who sent you here," he went on harshly, "and why you came. I never suspected you. I thought you were one of those strange creatures one meets in England, a gentlewoman who prefers working for her living to the more simple business of getting married. And all the time you were spying—clever—very clever!" ...
— The Clue of the Twisted Candle • Edgar Wallace

... days after that, a patrol of three Boers, spying the ensign whilst yet a long way off, galloped up in hot haste to see what it meant. Silas saw them coming, and, taking his rifle in his hand, went and stood beneath the flag, for which he had an almost superstitious veneration, feeling sure that they would ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard

... defend themselves had the mark of heretics put on them; and for nearly thirty years Spaniards carried on a system of burning British seamen whenever they could lay hands on them. They kept up a constant system of spying and plotting against the British Protestant Queen and her subjects of every position in life. The policy of the Spanish King and government was to make the British and other races vassals of the Pope. Philip, like ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman

... an outcast from the beginning. One day in the spring his tramp mother, too shiftless to build a home for herself, had come peeping and spying about the fuzzy nest of some yellow warblers that had built in an elder-bush by the river; and finding the birds away, had laid a big white egg speckled with brown in the midst of four dainty pale-blue ones that were wreathed with tiny dots. Then she had slipped away as quickly ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates

... two men of my Lord Cardinal's had already been a-spying about these parts, for to win the names of such as were suspect: and divers in and nigh Staplehurst shall hear more than they wot of, ere many days be over. Mine hostess at the White Hart had best look out, and—well, there be others; more in especial ...
— All's Well - Alice's Victory • Emily Sarah Holt

... relieve your mind that far by telling you it has nothing whatever to do with the game next Saturday; for that matter it's not about baseball at all. You're doing those fine chaps at Belleville a gross injustice to even hint at their thinking of spying ...
— The Chums of Scranton High - Hugh Morgan's Uphill Fight • Donald Ferguson

... "loco men" were Martha's favorites. There were three of them—Big Billy, Little Billy, and One-eyed Saylo. Why Saylo was called "one-eyed" was a mystery, for he had two of the very best eyes for spying the hated loco-weed ever known in that region. Loco-weed grows, when unmolested, to a height of sixteen or eighteen inches, and its queer leaves shine and sparkle in the sunlight like silver and crystals. Its effects on horses or cattle that happen to eat it are worse than ...
— Southern Stories - Retold from St. Nicholas • Various

... gone too far. But they needed to rid themselves of that spying flyer before they dared to move out into the plain. And to use the destruction of the helicopter as an example, would be the best proof he could give of the invincibility ...
— The Defiant Agents • Andre Alice Norton

... long to see the situation. They were surrounded by a cordon of savages, and while spying, saw a new lot of them coming up. The plan was plain enough, and it meant a fight now, or ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Adventures on Strange Islands • Roger Thompson Finlay

... Catharine's to look at a Dutch ship or two for some good handsome maps, but met none, and so back to Cornhill to Moxon's, but it being dark we staid not to see any, then to coach again, and presently spying Sir W. Batten; I 'light and took him in and to the Globe in Fleete Streete, by appointment, where by and by he and I with our solicitor to Sir F. Turner about Field's business, and back to the Globe, and thither I ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... Immediately, as Paul was afterward informed, the brave editor dropped on his knees and began to pray that they might not all be swallowed up. The shark was darting from side to side of the boat, but spying Boyton's black figure, it turned on its side and swam for him. Paul braced for the attack, and when the monster was close enough he ripped it under the mouth, and in going down it struck him a severe blow in the side ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton

... don't know, I suppose!" retorted Mrs. Higgs, derisively. "No more than you know what you wanted to come spying about Plumtree Wharf ...
— The Wharf by the Docks - A Novel • Florence Warden

... with having inflicted as much punishment as any three drummers at a soldier's whipping-match, and spying out his "tiger" in the throng, our gallant Avenging Childe tossed the heavy whip to the trim cockaded little man, that he might carry home that instrument of vengeance, deliberately wiped his wet mustachios, ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... it," said Mary. "You're safe from Richard Bassett now. Times are changed since he came spying to my gate. His own boy is gone. You have got two. He'll lie still if you do. But if you tell your tale, he must hear on't, and he'll tell his. For God's sake, my lady, keep close. It is the curse of women that they can't ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade

... it, but with horror and repugnance. It was something she wanted to escape from, and the fact of struggling against it was what made its hold so strong. It was as though her mind were sounding her body to make sure of itsallegiance, spying on it for any ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton

... to go home, Cherry; you have disobeyed my orders. I can have no one spying and watching me. I must send you away, my child." He spoke so sadly that Cherry's heart felt as though it must break. "And I must have Aunt Prudence back," ...
— Cornwall's Wonderland • Mabel Quiller-Couch

... my spying-place above, my lord," Geoffrey said. "I could see only the tops of their heads, and most of them still kept their hats on; nor did we see them as they passed, with the exception only of the man I supposed to be a priest. His face I saw plainly. It ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty

... gate a flood of Uhlans poured to make up for that wasted fortnight, preceded by their Taube aeroplanes spying out the movements of the Belgium army; the German artillery following, and smashing a track ...
— The Sequel - What the Great War will mean to Australia • George A. Taylor

... where I was sequestrated after Warder Gaydon had been entrusted with the mission of spying upon me in order to rob me of my secret? I ...
— Facing the Flag • Jules Verne

... save that general ghost of him which lingered in the mind of one devoted to her husband. Spying out his profile, for he was lying on his back, she refrained from saying: "John, are you awake?" A whiffling sound was coming from a nose, to which—originally straight—attention to military duties had given a slight crook, half an inch below the ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... ways, and not come near her; which was cold welcome for a man after a nine day's sweat. She added that if I or Marc'antonio came spying upon her, or in any way interfering until she sent for us, she would appeal to her brother ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine

... spake in his insolence; but the others blamed him, saying: "Antinous, thou didst ill to smite the wanderer; there is a doom on such deeds, if there be any god in heaven. Verily, the gods oft times put on the shape of men, and go through cities, spying out whether there is righteous dealing or ...
— The Story Of The Odyssey • The Rev. Alfred J. Church

... "You're the one will rue it," I said. "You've just spoilt the whole thing by spying on me ...
— We Ten - Or, The Story of the Roses • Lyda Farrington Kraus

... only an emergency, but there were limits to Kennedy's eavesdropping propensities, and spying on Carton's love affairs was quite another thing ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve

... "peace and mock me not, or, prince that you are, I will publish your crime of spying upon the prayer of a priestess of Baaltis. I tell you that I prayed for a symbol and a sign, ...
— Elissa • H. Rider Haggard

... boy, "you behaved very treacherously to us, dressing up, and spying on us; but I've got you, and won't ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn

... hoisted the anchor overboard to wait for dawn that for the second time Kendric felt again that oddly disturbing sense of hidden eyes spying at him. Again he was alone, standing forward, peering into the darkness, trying to make some sort of detail out of the black wall ahead which Barlow had told him was a long line of cliff. As before Charlie was at the wheel while Nigger Ben was listening ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory

... or a devil thus disguised. Ab hoste maligno libera nos, Domine, and ran away in a full flight, as if they had been routed, looking now and then behind them, like a dog that carrieth away a goose-wing in his mouth. Then Gymnast, spying his advantage, alighted from his horse, drew his sword, and laid on great blows upon the thickset and highest crested among them, and overthrew them in great heaps, hurt, wounded, and bruised, being resisted ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais



Words linked to "Spying" :   intelligence operation, spy, vigil, intelligence activity, spotting, watch, find, catching, espionage, discovery, intelligence, uncovering



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