Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: SPIES |
SPIESPlural1. Of Spy |
Date "SPIES" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1010. (references) |
| Domain | Definition |
Bible | Spies When the Israelites reached Kadesh for the first time, and were encamped there, Moses selected twelve spies from among the chiefs of the divisions of the tribes, and sent them forth to spy the land of Canaan (Num. 13), and to bring back to him a report of its actual condition. They at once proceeded on their important errand, and went through the land as far north as the district round Lake Merom. After about six weeks' absence they returned. Their report was very discouraging, and the people were greatly alarmed, and in a rebellious spirit proposed to elect a new leader and return to Egypt. Only two of the spies, Caleb and Joshua, showed themselves on this occasion stout-hearted and faithful. All their appeals and remonstrances were in vain. Moses announced that as a punishment for their rebellion they must now wander in the wilderness till a new generation should arise which would go up and posses the land. The spies had been forty days absent on their expedition, and for each day the Israelites were to be wanderers for a year in the desert. (See ESHCOL.) Two spies were sent by Joshua "secretly" i.e., unknown to the people (Josh. 2:1), "to view the land and Jericho" after the death of Moses, and just before the tribes under his leadership were about to cross the Jordan. They learned from Rahab (q.v.), in whose house they found a hiding-place, that terror had fallen on all the inhabitants of the land because of the great things they had heard that Jehovah had done for them (Ex. 15:14-16; comp. 23:27; Deut. 2:25; 11:25). As the result of their mission they reported: "Truly Jehovah hath delivered into our hands all the land; for even all the inhabitants of the country do faint because of us." Source: Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
Synonym: SPIESSynonym: Espionage. (additional references) |
Crosswords: SPIES |
| English words defined with "SPIES": counterespionage ♦ espionage, espionage network ♦ spy. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "SPIES": B1FF ♦ Driver of Europe ♦ Gaddiel ♦ Igal, industrial espionage, industrial spying ♦ Nahbi ♦ O'pal ♦ Palti, Paran ♦ Raphu ♦ Sethur, Shaphat, Sick Man, Spy, Susi ♦ Zaccur. (references) |
| Etymologies containing "SPIES": Speculatory, Spy. (references) |
| Non-English Usage: "SPIES" is also a word in the following language with English translations in parentheses. Dutch (lance, spear). |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | It appears we are equalin the eyes of spies. (Die Another Day; writing credit: Neal Purvis) Our parents can't be spies they're not cool enough! (Spy Kids; writing credit: Robert Rodriguez) When troubles come, they come not single spies but in battalions. (Young Guns II; writing credit: John Fusco) Call waiting for spies. (Alias; writing credit: Robert Soulé; Henri de Turenne) | |
Lyrics | There ain't nobody got spies like us (Spies Like Us; performing artist: Paul McCartney) Psychic spies from China (Californication; performing artist: Red Hot Chili Peppers) | |
Movie/TV Titles | Cambridge Spies (2003) The Helicopter Spies (1968) One of Our Spies Is Missing (1966) Sugar and Spies (1966) Where the Spies Are (1965) | |
Song Titles | Spies Like Us (performing artist: Paul McCartney) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title | ||
Books | |||
Theater & Movies |
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Music |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Author | Quotation |
William Shakespeare | When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | |
| Title | Author | Quote |
Grapes of Wrath | Steinbeck, John | And money that might have gone to wages went for gas, for guns, for agents and spies, for blacklists, for drilling. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Civil Liberties | Poland | In May 2000, the Warsaw district court ruled that the daily newspaper, Zycie, must apologize to President Aleksander Kwasniewski for publishing untrue information suggesting that the President had contacts with Russian spies. (references) |
Germany | For example, the Hamburg OPC published "The Intelligence Service of the Scientology Organization," which claims that Scientology tried to infiltrate governments, offices, and companies, and that the church spies on its opponents, defames them, and "destroys" them. (references) | |
Human Rights | Korea | In September 2000, 63 North Korean spies, who had been released from South Korean prisons, were allowed to return to North Korea per their wishes. (references) |
Political Economy | Western Sahara | The Government alleged that the three were spies for the Polisario. (references) |
Political Rights | Belarus | Lukashenka repeatedly criticized the organization as a mechanism for recruiting spies and for training revolutionaries. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| "SPIES" is generally used as a noun (plural) -- approximately 96.76% of the time. "SPIES" is used about 340 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (plural) | 96.76% | 329 | 15,846 |
| Lexical Verb (-s form) | 3.24% | 11 | 106,044 |
| Total | 100.00% | 340 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
| The following table summarizes the usage of "SPIES" based on a population census conducted in the United States. Ranks and frequencies are based on all names reported and classified. |
| Name | Usage/Gender | Usage per 100 million Persons | Rank in USA |
| Spies | Last name | 1,000 | 8,239 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits. | |||
| Hypenated Usage | |
Ending with "SPIES": ex-spies. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
spies.com totally | 37 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "SPIES"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | ||||||||||
Chinese | 间谍 (spy). (various references) | ||||||||||
French | épie. (various references) | ||||||||||
German | Spione. (various references) | ||||||||||
Korean | 간첩 (spy). (various references) | ||||||||||
Pig Latin | iesspay следить шпион. (various references) | ||||||||||
| Language | Period | Translations |
| Avestan | 200-600 | baêvare-spasanô. (various references) |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| Language | Date | Source | Genesis Chapter 42, Verse 11 |
| Greek (transliterated) | 250 BC | Septuagint | PanteV esmen uioi enoV anqrwpou eirhnikoi esmen ouk eisin oi paideV sou kataskopoi |
| Latin | 405 | Vulgate | Omnes filii unius viri sumus pacifici venimus nec quicquam famuli tui machinantur mali |
| Middle English | 1395 | Wyclif | Alle the sones of o man we ben, pesibli we comen, ne thi seruauntis eny thing casten of yuel. |
| Renaissance English | 1526 | Tyndale | We are all one mans sonnes and meane truely and thy seruauntes are no spies. |
| Jacobean English | 1611 | King James | We are all one man's sons; we are true men, thy servants are no spies. |
| Victorian English | 1833 | Webster | We are all one man's sons; we are true men; thy servants are no spies. |
| Basic English | 1964 | Ogden | We are all one man's sons, we are true men; we have not come with any secret purpose. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Language | Genesis Chapter 42, Verse 11 |
| Cebuano | Kaming tanan mga anak nga lalake sa usa ka tawo; kami mga tawo nga matuod: ang imong mga ulipon dili gayud mga tiktik. |
| Chinese | 我 們 都 是 一 個 人 的 ' 子 、 是 實 人 、 僕 人 們 並 不 是 奸 細 。 |
| Croatian | Svi smo sinovi jednog oca; pošteni smo ljudi; sluge tvoje nikad nisu bile uhode." |
| Danish | Vi er alle Sønner af en og samme Mand; vi er ærlige Folk. dine Trælle er ikke Spejdere!" |
| Dutch | Wij allen zijn eens mans zonen; wij zijn vroom; uw knechten zijn geen verspieders. |
| Finnish | Me olemme kaikki saman miehen poikia, olemme rehellisiä miehiä; palvelijasi eivät ole vakoojia." |
| French | Nous sommes tous fils d`un même homme; nous sommes sincères, tes serviteurs ne sont pas des espions. |
| German | Wir sind alle eines Mannes Söhne; wir sind redlich, und deine Knechte sind nie Kundschafter gewesen. |
| Haitian Creole | Nou tout nou se pitit yon sèl papa. Nou p'ap ba ou manti, se pa espyon nou ye. |
| Indonesian-Bahasa Sehari-hari | Kami ini bersaudara, Tuanku. Kami ini orang baik-baik, bukan mata-mata." |
| Indonesian-Terjemahan Lama | Patik sekalian ini anak-anak sebapa jua dan patik ini orang benar, bukannya patik tuanku orang pengintai adanya. |
| Italian | Noi siamo tutti figli di un solo uomo. Noi siamo sinceri. I tuoi servi non sono spie!». |
| Korean | 우 리 " 다 한 사 람 의 아 " 로 서 독 실 한 자 니 종 " 은 탐 이 아 니 니 이 다' |
| Maori | He tama katoa matou na te tangata kotahi; he hunga pono matou, ehara au pononga i te tutei. |
| Norwegian | Vi er alle sønner av én mann; vi er ærlige folk, dine tjenere er ikke speidere. |
| Rumanian | Noi toyi skntem fiii aceluiaw om; skntem oameni de treabq, robii tqi nu sknt iscoade.`` |
| Russian | НЩ ЧУЕ "ЕФЙ П"ОПЗП ЮЕМПЧЕЛБ; НЩ МА"Й ЮЕУФОЩЕ; ТБ'Щ ФЧПЙ ОЕ 'ЩЧБМЙ УПЗМС"БФБСНЙ. |
| Spanish | Todos nosotros somos hijos de un mismo hombre. Somos hombres honestos; tus siervos no somos espías. |
| Swedish | Vi äro alla söner till en och samma man; vi äro redliga män, dina tjänare äro inga spejare." |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
Derivations | |
Words ending with "SPIES": counterspies, espies, superspies. (additional references) | |
Words containing "SPIES": crispiest, raspiest, waspiest, wispiest. (additional references) | |
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"SPIES" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: Psis, spaes, spase, spei, Spesh, spez, spia, spids, spie, spifs, spigs, spiles, spise, spose, spues, spuse. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "SPIES" (pronounced spī"z) |
| 4 | s p ī" z | despise. |
| 3 | -p ī" z | pies. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
Direct Anagrams: sipes. | |
| Words within the letters "e-i-p-s-s" | |
-1 letter: pies, piss, psis, seis, sipe, sips. | |
-2 letters: ess, pes, pie, pis, psi, sei, sip, sis. | |
-3 letters: es, is, pe, pi, si. | |
| Words containing the letters "e-i-p-s-s" | |
+1 letter: espies, peises, pishes, pissed, pisser, pisses, pistes, plisse, poises, posies, prises, sepias, sepsis, slipes, snipes, speils, speirs, speise, speiss, spices, spiels, spiers, spikes, spiles, spines, spires, spites, stipes, swipes. | |
+2 letters: aphesis, apsides, asepsis, aspires, aspises, cesspit, despise, dispels, dispose, espials, esprits, gipsies, gypsies, hipless, hipness, impasse, imposes, impress, insteps, lapises, lipases, lipless, lispers, mispens, misstep, palsies, pansies, paresis, parises, passive, pasties, patsies, pavises, pelisse, penises, pensils, pepsins, persist, petsais, pissers, plisses, poesies, poisers, popsies, potsies, poussie, praises, premiss, priests, prissed, prisses, prossie, puisnes, pussier, pussies, reships, sapiens, septics, simpers, simples, sippers, sippets, skepsis, snipers, sophies, sopites, spavies, species, speises, spicers, spiders, spikers, spinels, spinets, spinose, spireas, spirems, spitzes, splices, splines, spriest, sprites, stipels, stirpes, stripes, supines, suspire, swiples, tapises, tipless, uprises, upsides, vespids, zipless. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Usage: Commercial 6. Images: Slideshow 7. Quotations: Familiar 8. Quotations: Fiction | 9. Quotations: Non-fiction 10. Usage Frequency 11. Names: Frequency 12. Expressions | 13. Expressions: Internet 14. Translations: Modern 15. Translations: Ancient 16. Bible Trace | 17. Derivations 18. Rhymes 19. Anagrams 20. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
