espial
Americannoun
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the act of spying.
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the act of keeping watch; observation.
noun
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the act or fact of being seen or discovered
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the act of noticing
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the act of spying upon; secret observation
Etymology
Origin of espial
1350–1400; Middle English espiaille < Middle French. See espy, -al 2
Vocabulary lists containing espial
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Then Wisdom altered its method and spoke of espial and discovery.
From The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Thus urged by our despairing lord, we made Th’ espial.
From The Seven Plays in English Verse by Sophocles
Presently he moved forward, and, with head still bent, approached the lower end of the garden, where, in a wall higher than that over which Goldthorpe made his espial, there was a wooden door.
From The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories by George Gissing
"Cry, cries, crying, cried, crier, decrial; Shy, shyer, shyest, shyly, shyness; Fly, flies, flying, flier, high-flier; Sly, slyer, slyest, slyly, slyness; Spy, spies, spying, spied, espial; Dry, drier, driest, dryly, dryness."
From The Grammar of English Grammars by Goold Brown
Quite into fairyland they had come now, in truth; as if, skirting the dark peak that shut it off from ordinary espial, they had lighted on a bypath that led them covertly in.
From Faith Gartney's Girlhood by A. D. T. (Adeline Dutton Train) Whitney
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
