spy on
phrasal verb
spied on; spying on; spies on
: to watch (someone) secretly
He spies on his neighbors.
Have you been spying on me?
Examples of spy on in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
It’s supposed to be used to spy on foreigners—NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden made sure the world knew about that use case—but White House privacy advisers made clear at the time that Americans’ communications are also often scooped up.
—
David Meyer, Fortune, 11 Apr. 2024
Democrats who have long championed civil liberties, like Sen. Ron Wyden, have aligned with Republican supporters of Trump, who in a post on Truth Social on Wednesday stated incorrectly that Section 702 had been used to spy on his presidential campaign.
—CBS News, 10 Apr. 2024
Nobelium, the same group behind the SolarWinds attack, managed to spy on some Microsoft executive email inboxes for months.
—Tom Warren, The Verge, 3 Apr. 2024
Our hosts go into the weird story behind the song: Madonna wrote it with collaborator Stephen Bray, a low-budget home recording inspired by spying on a hot neighbor dancing in his apartment in the Lower East Side.
—Rob Sheffield, Rolling Stone, 27 Mar. 2024
The Duke of Sussex, Elton John, Elizabeth Hurley and others claim that Associated Newspapers Ltd. hacked their phones or used other unlawful means to spy on them.
—Democrat-Gazette Staff From Wire Reports, arkansasonline.com, 3 Mar. 2024
Rather than targeting big corporations, the hackers in India’s underground are routinely paid to access personal email accounts, whether by a wife spying on her husband’s financial affairs or a blackmail victim searching for a way out of their predicament.
—Chris Wheatley, Longreads, 12 Mar. 2024
Its meteoric rise over the past several years has been accompanied by warnings from national security officials and lawmakers that China's communist government could gain access to its vast trove of data and use that information to spy on Americans.
—Caitlin Yilek, CBS News, 7 Mar. 2024
The man is suspected of spying on women at a home on Dorothy Drive in late December.
—City News Service, San Diego Union-Tribune, 29 Feb. 2024
David Meyer, Fortune, 11 Apr. 2024
Democrats who have long championed civil liberties, like Sen. Ron Wyden, have aligned with Republican supporters of Trump, who in a post on Truth Social on Wednesday stated incorrectly that Section 702 had been used to spy on his presidential campaign.
—CBS News, 10 Apr. 2024
Nobelium, the same group behind the SolarWinds attack, managed to spy on some Microsoft executive email inboxes for months.
—Tom Warren, The Verge, 3 Apr. 2024
Our hosts go into the weird story behind the song: Madonna wrote it with collaborator Stephen Bray, a low-budget home recording inspired by spying on a hot neighbor dancing in his apartment in the Lower East Side.
—Rob Sheffield, Rolling Stone, 27 Mar. 2024
The Duke of Sussex, Elton John, Elizabeth Hurley and others claim that Associated Newspapers Ltd. hacked their phones or used other unlawful means to spy on them.
—Democrat-Gazette Staff From Wire Reports, arkansasonline.com, 3 Mar. 2024
Rather than targeting big corporations, the hackers in India’s underground are routinely paid to access personal email accounts, whether by a wife spying on her husband’s financial affairs or a blackmail victim searching for a way out of their predicament.
—Chris Wheatley, Longreads, 12 Mar. 2024
Its meteoric rise over the past several years has been accompanied by warnings from national security officials and lawmakers that China's communist government could gain access to its vast trove of data and use that information to spy on Americans.
—Caitlin Yilek, CBS News, 7 Mar. 2024
The man is suspected of spying on women at a home on Dorothy Drive in late December.
—City News Service, San Diego Union-Tribune, 29 Feb. 2024
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'spy on.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
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Cite this Entry
“Spy on.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/spy%20on. Accessed 27 Apr. 2024.
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