espía

Forms

espía m or f by sense (plural espías)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish espia, borrowed from Gothic *spaíha (“spy, watcher”), a Gothic noun that is not attested but is reconstructed from the Romance words.^[2][3][4][5] The verb espiar is in Corominas's view a separate loan, from Gothic *spaíhōn (“to watch, spy”), which is related to Old High German spehōn and German spähen (“to peer, watch”).^[2][3] The DLE derives the verb from the noun instead, and the Wikcionario takes the noun for a deverbal of the verb.^[6][4][7] The Germanic verb is Proto-Germanic *spehōną (“to look, see”), from Proto-Indo-European *speḱ- (“to look”), the root of Latin speciō (“to look at”) as well.^[8][1]

The same word is Catalan espia, Portuguese espia, Occitan espia, Italian spia and the rare Old French espie.^[2][9] Corominas rejects Terlingen's view that the Spanish words came from Italian, where they also appear in the 14th century: everywhere they are native Germanisms.^[2] The ending ⟨-a⟩ of all these forms points to a Gothic noun of the a-declension, beside the Lombardic form behind Italian spione (second half of the 13th century), from which French espion comes.^[2] The Gothic diphthong, pronounced as an open /ɛː/, developed as in Latin mea, which gave Old Spanish mía.^[2][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

La fazienda de Ultra Mar, of about 1200 and in a 13th-century copy, uses the plural for the spies Moses sent into Canaan: vinieron las espias del desierto de Faram a tierra de promission “the spies came from the wilderness of Paran to the promised land”.^[10][11] Corominas's first record is the Caballero Zifar of about 1300: los espías que allá embió “the spies he sent there”.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

In the Middle Ages espía and espiar competed with barrunte and barruntar and with near-synonyms such as esculca and atalaya; both became frequent from the 16th century on.^[2] Nebrija's Spanish–Latin dictionary gives the noun as Latin explorator.^[12] In the thieves' cant of 1609 espía was the lookout.^[13] The Academy's 1817 edition records espía doble, one who serves both sides for profit, and the nickname espía del purgatorio for a very thin, sickly person.^[14] The modern dictionaries add the agent in the service of a state who gathers secret, mostly military information.^[4][15]

In the 19th century the French form espión had some currency in Latin America, especially in Venezuela, and espionaje, from French espionnage, entered the Academy's dictionary in 1884.^[2]

Timeline

• c. 1200 – La fazienda de Ultra Mar, in a 13th-century copy, has las espias.^[10][11]
• c. 1300 – the Caballero Zifar, the first record Corominas gives.^[2][3]
• 15th century – Juan de Mena, Alfonso de Palencia and Nebrija use the noun; the verb espiar is first recorded in Palencia in 1490.^[2][3]
• 1541 – the first record from the Americas, in Michoacán.^[16]
• 1609 – Hidalgo's glossary of thieves' cant defines it as the lookout.^[13]
• 1817 – the Academy's dictionary records espía doble.^[14]
• 1884 – espionaje is first in the Academy's dictionary.^[2][3]

Meanings

Noun

1. A spy: a person who secretly watches or listens to what happens in order to report it to someone interested: La vecina hacía de espía para el casero.^[4][1]
2. An agent in the service of a state who obtains secret information, usually of a military kind: Lo detuvieron acusado de ser espía de una potencia extranjera.^[4][17]
3. (used after a noun) Used for spying: un avión espía.^[18]

Word family

• espionaje

Related words

• espiar
• espión
• Italian spia
• French espion

Usage notes

The word is masculine or feminine according to the person (el espía, la espía); espía doble is a double agent.^[4][1] A separate nautical espía is the act of warping a ship and the warp used for it, and also a guy rope that holds a pole upright; it comes from the verb espiar “to warp”, which Corominas derives from Portuguese espiar, of uncertain origin, and first finds in the Diccionario de Autoridades.^[4][19]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 742
3. ^ a b c d e f g Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. espía
4. ^ a b c d e f g Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. espía
5. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. espía
6. ^ Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. espiar
7. ^ Wikcionario (Spanish Wiktionary), es.wiktionary.org, p. s.v. espía
8. ^ Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 363
9. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. speha
10. ^ a b Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. espía
11. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. espía
12. ^ Lleal, Coloma (dir.), DICCA-XV: Diccionario del castellano del siglo XV en la Corona de Aragón, Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, Grup d'Estudis d'Història de la Llengua (GHCL), https://ghcl.ub.edu/diccaxv, p. s.v. espía
13. ^ a b Hidalgo, Juan (1609), Romances de germanía de varios autores, con el vocabulario por la orden del a.b.c. para declaración de sus términos y lengua, Barcelona: Sebastián de Cormellas (ed. Madrid 1779), p. 175
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 388
15. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. espía
16. ^ Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, p. s.v. espía
17. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. espía
18. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. espía
19. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 743