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

From Chipping Norton, one can espy an extraordinary edifice, half-castle, half-factory, called the Bliss tweed mill.

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

If he espies a tempting morsel he drops like a stone, and alights on a spot almost exactly below him—a power which few birds seem to possess.

From Wild Life in a Southern County by Richard Jefferies

At the Valley of Blood she espies other unfortunates.

From Legends & Romances of Brittany by Lewis Spence

He peeps in around the door and espies Mrs. Starkweather.

From Theft A Play In Four Acts by Jack London

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

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

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

"Oh, look at this," cried the President, espying "Little Phil" Sheridan's gold-plated Winchester.

From Time Magazine Archive

Then espying the branch of a tree and taking hold of it, he raised himself and left the stream.

From The Gospel of Buddha Compiled from Ancient Records by Paul Carus by Paul Carus