Espionage is the work of spying on another state or company. Industrial espionage, charged with espionage, an espionage network.
It is the formal word, used in law and in history where spying is used in speech. Industrial or corporate espionage is stealing commercial secrets and is prosecuted quite differently from the state kind. Counter-espionage is the work of catching it. Note that espionage charges carry some of the heaviest sentences in most legal systems; and that spy, espionage and spectacle share a root about looking.
1nounespionageThe work of spying on another state or company.
“The engineer was arrested for espionage after selling secret plans to a rival country.”
espionage is the practice of spying.
French espionnage comes from espion, a spy, from Frankish spehon, to watch. Latin specere, to look, gives spectacle and inspect from the same watching.
Proto-Indo-European
*speḱ-
Frankish
*spehō — spy
Old French
espion — spy
Middle French
espionner — to spy
French
espionnage
English, today
espionage
Built from
Recorded since 1793, from French espionnage, from espionner (“to spy”), from Middle French espionner (“to spy”), from espion (“spy”), from Old French espion (“spy”), from Frankish spehō (“spy”), from Frankish spehōn (“to spy”), from Proto-Germanic spehōną (“to spy, peek, peer”). In modern times, the French pronunciation of the s, which had fallen silent since the 13th century, was restored due to the influence of Italian spione (“spy”), and was therefore also adopted by the English. More at spy.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA