Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Spying |
SpyingNoun1. Keeping a secret or furtive watch. 2. The act of keeping a secret watch for intelligence purposes. 3. The act of detecting something; catching sight of something. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "spying" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1200. (references) |
| Domain | Definition |
Law | An unlawful intelligence-gathering activity in which a person conducts, organises, recruits others to conduct or encourages military intelligence-gathering services on behalf of a foreign state and to the detriment of Switzerland. Source: European Union. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
Espionage is the practice of spying on others (whether states or other entities) to gain information for economic, political or military advantage. Most nations routinely spy on their enemies, and allies, although they generally deny this. Espionage conducted for commercial purposes is industrial espionage. Black's Law Dictionary (1990) defines espionage as: "...gathering, transmitting, or losing...[information related to the national defense]." Espionage, by a citizen of the target state, is generally considered to be a form of treason.
The Cold War involved intense espionage activity between the United States of America and its allies and the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China and their allies, particulary related to nuclear weapons secrets.
Recently, espionage agencies have targeted the illegal drug trade and terroristss.
See: Cold War espionage
Notable spies or alleged spies
- Aldrich Ames
- Rosario Ames
- James Armistead
- Moe Berg
- Jacques Cousteau
- Mansfield Cummings
- Cambridge Five
- Klaus Fuchs
- Ian Fleming
- Nathan Hale
- Theodore Hall
- Robert Hanssen
- Mata Hari
- Harold Nicholson
- Kim Philby
- Earl Edwin Pitts
- Jonathan Pollard
- Alfred Redl
- Sidney Reilly
- Ethel and Julius Rosenberg
- Rainer Rupp
- Saville Sax
- Richard Sorge
- Markus Wolf
Espionage organizations
See also Intelligence agencies and Special Operations Executive
- Israel: Mossad
- Soviet Union: KGB
- UK: MI5 and MI6
- USA: CIA, DIA, NSA
Intelligence disciplines
- SIGINT - Intelleigence gathered by intercepting communications.
- HUMINT - Intelligence gathered by a person on the ground.
- ELINT - Intelligence gathered from electronic sensors.
- OSINT - Intelligence gathered from open sources.
- IMINT
- MASINT
Espionage technology and techniques
- Cryptography
- Steganography
- Echelon
- Spy satellite
- Ultra
- The U-2 spy plane
Counter-espionage technology and techniques
- TEMPEST - Protection devices for communication equipment.
Fictional spies
- John Clark
- Domingo Chavez
- James Bond
- Maxwell Smart
- Carmen and Juni Cortez
External links
See also
Secret agent, Spy fiction, numbers station, surveillance.
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Espionage."
Synonyms: SpyingSynonyms: catching (n), detection (n), espial (n), spotting (n), undercover work (n). (additional references) |
Crosswords: Spying |
| English words defined with "spying": counterespionage, creep ♦ Judas hole ♦ mouse ♦ pussyfoot ♦ security staff, sneak, Spyism, steal. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "spying": OS and JEDGAR. (references) |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | You were spying on me (Buffy the Vampire Slayer; writing credit: Doreen Spicer) Apparently his rotten spying bastards are better than my rotten spying bastards (Weapons of Mass Distraction; writing credit: Larry Gelbart) Are you spying on me (American Gothic; writing credit: Mariana Reyes; Doris Seguí) | |
Movie/TV Titles | Carry On Spying (1964) Spying the Spy (1918) The Spying Game (1999) Adventures in Spying (1992) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title |
Books | |
Theater & Movies | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit | Thumbnail | Description & Credit |
 | Edmond Pope (center), the American businessman convicted of spying by the Russian government, arrived at Ramstein Air base, Germany, Dec. 14 following his release from prison. The 54-year-old retired Navy officer was to receive a medical evaluation at ne. |  | Maybe I'll do a little spying of my own! / Gib Crockett, Washington Star. Credit: Library of Congress. |
 | The story of Cupid and Psyche: Psyche spying on Cupid. Credit: Library of Congress. | ||
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Health | According to one theory, patrolling cells of the immune system provide continuing bodywide surveillance, spying out and eliminating cells that undergo malignant transformation. (references) | |
Civil Liberties | Afghanistan | Ridley was held for 10 days on charges of spying. (references) |
Human Rights | Afghanistan | The three were accused of spying and attempting to bribe tribesmen. (references) |
Korea | Human rights groups believe that many dissidents tried by past military governments during the 1970's and 1980's were sentenced to long prison terms on false charges of spying for North Korea. (references) | |
Political Economy | Western Sahara | Almost 10 days later, the Sahrawi reappeared in Agadir and was charged before the court of first instance for spying for the Polisario. (references) |
Western Sahara | The February and March demonstrations came in response to the December 1999 incarceration of three Sahrawis accused of spying for the Polisario. (references) | |
Sudan | In previous years, Human Rights Watch reported that the Sudan Alliance Forces (SAF), an NDA member, committed abuses against its soldiers accused of spying or defecting to another rebel group, including torture, summary executions, and the detention of prisoners in a pit in the ground. (references) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| "Spying" is generally used as a lexical verb (-ing form) -- approximately 89.62% of the time. "Spying" is used about 183 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 |
| Lexical Verb (-ing form) | 89.62% | 164 | 24,408 |
| Noun (proper) | 3.83% | 7 | 133,076 |
| Noun (singular) | 3.28% | 6 | 143,867 |
| Adjective (general or positive) | 3.28% | 6 | 143,867 |
| Total | 100.00% | 183 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expressions using "spying": industrial spying ♦ spying on ♦ spying out of data. Additional references. | |
| 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. |
| Language | Translations for "spying"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Arabic | تجسس (eavesdrop, espionage, rat, sing, snoop, snooping, spy), ترقب بدقة. (various references) | |
Chinese | 侦察 (reconnaissance, Reconnoissance, reconnoiter, reconnoitering, reconnoitre, reconnoitring, Scouted, scouting, Spied). (various references) | |
Danish | industrispionage (industrial espionage, industrial spying), computerspionage (computer espionage, spying out of data). (various references) | |
Dutch | technisch spionage (technological spying), ruimtespionage (spying from space), industriële spionage (industrial espionage, industrial spying), economische spionage (industrial espionage, industrial spying), computerspionage (computer espionage, spying out of data), bedrijfsspionage (industrial espionage, industrial spying). (various references) | |
Finnish | vakoilu (espionage), urkinta (espionage). (various references) | |
French | espionnage. (various references) | |
German | spionage (espionage). (various references) | |
Greek | κατασκοπεύων, κατασκοπεία (espionage). (various references) | |
Hebrew | בלוש (detection, investigation, search), ר'ול (espionage). (various references) | |
Hungarian | kémkedés (espionage). (various references) | |
Italian | spionaggio (espionage, secret service). (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | 偵知 (investigating). (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | ていち (anchorage, bottom land, depression, fixed, investigating, low, low ground, lowlands, plain). (various references) | |
Korean | 감시 (guard, Guards, monitoring, surveillance). (various references) | |
Manx | speeikearys (reconnaissance), speeikearagh (descrying, peep, pry, spy), sheegerys, scryaltys. (various references) | |
Pig Latin | yingspay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | espionagem industrial (industrial espionage). (various references) | |
Romanian | spionaj (espionage). (various references) | |
Russian | шпионить слежение. (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | špijuniranje (espial). (various references) | |
Spanish | espionaje (espial, espionage). (various references) | |
Swedish | industrispionage (industrial espionage), datorspionage (computer espionage, spying out of data). (various references) | |
Turkish | casusluk (cloak-and-dagger, espionage). (various references) | |
Welsh | ysbienddrych (spying glass). (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words ending with "spying": espying. (additional references) | |
| |
"Spying" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: skying, spiering, sping, spyingt, syin. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "spying" (pronounced spī"ing) |
| 3 | -ī" i ng | applying, belying, buying, complying, crying, decrying, defying, denying, drying, dyeing, dying, eyeing, flying, frying, implying, indemnifying, lying, misapplying, overflying, overlying, plying, prying, relying, replying, retrying, semidrying, shying, sighing, supplying, tieing, trying, tying, underlying, undying, vying. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "g-i-n-p-s-y" | |
-1 letter: gipsy, pings, pyins, spiny. | |
-2 letters: gins, gips, gyps, nips, pigs, ping, pins, piny, pyin, sign, sing, snip, spin, yins, yips. | |
-3 letters: gin, gip, gyp, ins, nip, pig, pin, pis, psi, sin, sip, spy, syn, yin, yip. | |
-4 letters: in, is, pi, si. | |
| Words containing the letters "g-i-n-p-s-y" | |
+1 letter: espying, pigsney, spaying, springy. | |
+2 letters: gipsying, gypseian, gypsying, palsying, pigsneys, posingly, psyching, splaying, spongily, spraying, yawpings. | |
+3 letters: agrypnias, biopsying, bypassing, egyptians, epigynies, epigynous, mistyping, raspingly, sparingly, springily, supplying, synapsing, syphering, syphoning. | |
+4 letters: autopsying, displaying, graspingly, hypogynies, imposingly, miscopying, misplaying, oligopsony, panegyrics, panegyrist, paralysing, pargylines, perigynies, perigynous, phrensying, physicking, playthings, pleasingly, polygonies, polygynies, presignify, pressingly, respraying, specifying, sportingly, stupefying, superlying, sweepingly. | |
| 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. Images: Photo Album 8. Quotations: Non-fiction | 9. Usage Frequency 10. Expressions 11. Expressions: Internet 12. Translations: Modern | 13. Derivations 14. Rhymes 15. Anagrams 16. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
