espy

And sympathy for the people whom we espy is born out of that complicity, a compassion that stems from the false sense that we are observing people’s most private moments without permission, undetected.

From Salon ● Jul. 12, 2015

A traveller upon the sea she fared, fleeting on with foam about her throat over the waves, over the ocean-streams with wreathéd prow, until they might espy the Geatish cliffs and headlands that they knew.

From The New Yorker ● Jun. 2, 2014

I did espy one couple who had obtained a turkey.

From Time Magazine Archive

They know that the other judges of the World Court are not filled with gladness when they espy the ruddy, oval face and trim white beard of John Bassett Moore.

From Time Magazine Archive

She gave up straining to espy, past the apparently real, something denser.

From "Typical American" by Gish Jen

A man who stops for gas a sign espies That says a dog out back has quite a knack.

From Washington Post ● Sep. 3, 2020

Behind peppy songs like “Singin’ in the Rain”  and “Tiptoe Through the Tulips,” Mr. Mac espies a frantic need to forget those horrors.

From New York Times ● Jan. 14, 2015

Terror-struck, he inquires whence it comes, and then espies the corpse.

From Oscar Wilde by Leonard Cresswell Ingleby

And if we pass from this profound knowledge of the objects to the empirical knowledge, to the external perception of bodies, it is in immense number that one espies around one traps laid by nature.

From The Mind and the Brain Being the Authorised Translation of L'Âme et le Corps by Alfred Binet

The chords of the guitar take up the refrain, and Captain Stevenson, turning, espies Carol.

From When the Birds Begin to Sing by Harold Piffard

Discerning blurry outlines in Himalayan mountain zones, gullible visitors uttered: “Just look! We’ve finally espied proof! The abominable snowman eXists!”

From Washington Post ● Nov. 23, 2022

As opposed to when I espied Mr. McConnell on my flight in yesterday, now he is dressed to the nines, as befits both his home state and the event.

From Washington Times ● May 10, 2017

He also misstated that Leifer’s editor espied the photo and submitted it to the “Pictures of the Year” contest.

From Slate ● May 29, 2015

He in the house espied there many a man asleep, a throng of kinsmen side by side, and band of youthful knights.

From The New Yorker ● Jun. 2, 2014

When he espied Jon Snow, Axell Florent tossed a bone aside, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and sauntered over.

From "A Dance with Dragons" by George R. R. Martin

The couple got into rare books quite by accident, recalled David Bauman, a gentle, soft-spoken man in his 70s, after espying some at Freeman, the auction house in Philadelphia where they lived as newlyweds.

From New York Times ● Jan. 30, 2019

The third moral outrage I imagine the future espying is our cruelty to the ill and aged in our fetish for surgical intervention.

From BBC ● Feb. 26, 2016

Only John Melia, a spokesman for Local 1-2 of the Utility Workers Union of America, the union representing the locked-out workers, grows impassioned, in the manner of a kamikaze pilot espying a large aircraft carrier.

From New York Times ● Jul. 24, 2012

Flush with unaccustomed cash and astute at espying loopholes in the law's vigilance, he rambled across the country using a collection of aliases.

From Time Magazine Archive

The unlucky woman espying the cakes burning at the fire, ran up to remove them, and rebuking the brave king, exclaimed:— Ca'sn thee mind the ke-aks, man, an' doossen zee 'em burn?

From Old English Chronicles by Various