Other forms: espys, espied
To espy is to catch sight of something at a distance. Espy a sail, espy him in the crowd, espy the tower.
It is archaic and literary, and it suggests noticing something small or far off rather than merely seeing it. It is the same word as spy, which lost its opening vowel. Note descry, which means much the same and is equally old-fashioned.
1verbespyTo catch sight of something at a distance.
“From the top of the hill, we espied a small cottage far down in the valley.”
espy is a catching sight.
Old French espier means to watch or spy, from a Germanic root. Spy is the same word with the first syllable lost.
Proto-Indo-European
*speḱ- — to look, observe, see
Proto-Germanic
*spehōną — to look, peer; to spy
Frankish
*spehōn — to look, peer; to spy
Vulgar Latin
*spiāre
Old French
espier — to watch
Middle English
aspien
English, today
espy
Built from
From Middle English aspien, espien (“to make covert observations of (a person or place) with hostile intent, to spy on; to seek to discover by spying; to act as a spy; to catch sight of, see; to look over, observe; to wait in ambush, to ambush; to plot against; to look for, seek to find; to inquire or look into, investigate; to discover, find”)espie, espy, espye, from Old French espier (“to watch”) (modern French épier (“to keep an eye on, watch; to spy on; (dated) to watch for”)), from Vulgar Latin spiāre, from Frankish spehōn (“to look, peer; to spy”), from Proto-Germanic spehōną (“to look, peer; to spy”), from Proto-Indo-European speḱ- (“to look, observe, see”). a doublet of spy. 2
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA