spy

«spy» in Mova's school dictionary: a person who secretly collects information about another… — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 5 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

noun (a spy, spies); verb (spy, spies, spied, spying)

meaning for a pupil

1) A spy is a person who secretly collects information about another country, group or person. tree →

2) To spy on someone is to watch them secretly. tree →

3) To spy something is to see or notice it: «I spy with my little eye…». tree →

sense in the lessons

In stories and films spies use codes, disguises and gadgets. In history lessons spies worked in wars. In everyday life «I spy» is a guessing game. In safety and privacy lessons, spying on people's messages is wrong, and spyware can spy on your computer. Phrases: «spy on», «I spy», «a spy camera», «spy story».

examples

• The spy sent a secret message in code. tree →
• Stop spying on me! tree →
• Let's play «I spy» in the car. tree →
• I spy something beginning with «t». tree →
• She spied a coin under the sofa. tree →
• In the war, spies hid secret plans in shoes. tree →
• The spy wore a disguise so nobody knew him. tree →
• “Do you suspect me of being a spy sent by the ogre?” tree →

note

Plural: «spies»; past: «spied» (y → i). Spying on someone's diary or phone without asking is a breach of privacy and trust.

In the corpora

• Parents may ask to see the chat or the TV history to understand what happened and fix it, not to spy.
• "Terminate with extreme prejudice" means assassinate, murder an important or chosen person on purpose (US spy slang).
• Games like I spy, counting number plates and audiobooks make a long car journey pass faster.
• He played Minecraft until midnight and felt like a spy.
• We are all one man's sons; we are upright men, thy servants are no spies.'

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «spy» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.