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

This is the hour when children who play in the vicinity of the Connecticut Avenue bridge espy the huge old figure who chuckles with his stomach and is always willing to stop and say hello.

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

Bechan, her mahout, espies a small creeper which is highly esteemed by the natives as a febrifuge and is considered a good tonic for elephants.

From Life in an Indian Outpost by Gordon Casserly

She espies the thorns, and Kateri confesses all.

From The Life and Times of Kateri Tekakwitha The Lily of the Mohawks by Ellen H. Walworth

At the Valley of Blood she espies other unfortunates.

From Legends & Romances of Brittany by Lewis Spence

Leave it to van Gogh to turn a tree he espied in the landscape into a profound mystery, bringing new life to an ancient symbol.

From New York Times ● May 11, 2023

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

Eventually, many months after that issue of Sports Illustrated had been consigned to the stacks, an editor espied the image again and thought it worth consideration.

From Slate ● May 22, 2015

Another man was a day from home when he espied the slave patrol approaching upon the road; and he repaired into a yard and split wood until they passed.

From "The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume II: The Kingdom on the Waves" by M.T. Anderson

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

Once upon a time an eagle, scaling round a farmer's barn and espying a hare, darted down upon him like a sunbeam, seized him in his claws, and remounted with him to the air.

From True to His Home A Tale of the Boyhood of Franklin by H. Winthrop Pierce