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.
The best espionage stories come to life in the details, from the lives of the agents to the weather in far-flung cities.
Arrested in Iran in May 2022, Kohler and Paris were freed in November after more than three years in prison on espionage charges their families vehemently denied.
From Barron's
He focuses on espionage, covert action and digital surveillance.
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
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.
