espionage
Americannoun
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the act or practice of spying.
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the use of spies by a government to discover the military and political secrets of other nations.
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the use of spies by a corporation or the like to acquire the plans, technical knowledge, etc., of a competitor.
industrial espionage.
noun
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the systematic use of spies to obtain secret information, esp by governments to discover military or political secrets
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the act or practice of spying
Other Word Forms
- nonespionage noun
Etymology
Origin of espionage
First recorded in 1785–95; from French espionnage, Middle French espionage, from espionn(er) “to spy” (derivative of espion “a spy,” from Italian spione, from Germanic ) + -age -age; espy
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.
When Anthropic recently disclosed a cyber espionage campaign that used artificial intelligence to execute much of the attack autonomously, headlines framed it as a new, uncontrollable threat.
British couple Lindsay and Craig Foreman have been sentenced in Iran to 10 years in prison for espionage, their family have said.
From BBC
The CIA’s efforts in China were devastated when nearly two dozen assets were executed or imprisoned more than a decade ago, leaving the agency struggling to rebuild its human espionage capabilities in China.
Intelligence experts believe south-western France is being increasingly targeted by Chinese and other espionage because of the region's proximity to defence, aerospace and telecommunication sites.
From BBC
He had faced up to 15 years on the economic espionage charge.
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.