{
    "term": "spy",
    "partOfSpeech": "noun",
    "ox5000": true,
    "cefr": "c1",
    "definitions": [
        {
            "senseNumber": null,
            "definition": "a person who tries to get secret information about another country, organization or person, especially somebody who is employed by a government or the police",
            "examples": [
                {
                    "text": "He was denounced as a foreign spy."
                },
                {
                    "text": "a police spy"
                },
                {
                    "text": "a **spy plane/satellite** *(= used to watch the activities of the enemy)*"
                },
                {
                    "text": "Video spy cameras are being used in public places."
                },
                {
                    "text": "Counter-intelligence officers uncovered a spy ring involving twenty agents."
                },
                {
                    "text": "He denied acting as an enemy spy."
                },
                {
                    "text": "He was a spy for the government."
                },
                {
                    "text": "Soviet spies who had infiltrated the American government"
                },
                {
                    "text": "the director of a top American spy agency"
                },
                {
                    "text": "He became a government spy during the war."
                },
                {
                    "text": "He worked as a British spy in Russia."
                }
            ],
            "topics": ["War and conflict", "Jobs"],
            "collocations": {
                "adjective": ["enemy", "foreign", "government"],
                "… of spies": ["network"],
                "verb + spy": ["act as", "be", "work as"],
                "spy + verb": ["infiltrate"],
                "spy + noun": ["film", "movie", "novel"],
                "preposition": ["spy for"]
            }
        }
    ],
    "pronunciations": {
        "uk": [
            {
                "pronunciation": "/spaɪ/",
                "audio": "sp/spy/spy__gb_1.mp3"
            }
        ],
        "us": [
            {
                "pronunciation": "/spaɪ/",
                "audio": "sp/spy/spy__us_1.mp3"
            }
        ]
    },
    "wordOrigin": "Middle English: shortening of Old French espie ‘espying’, espier ‘espy’, of Germanic origin, from an Indo-European root shared by Latin specere ‘behold, look’."
}