Spy vs Agent - What's the difference?
spy | agent |
A person who secretly watches and examines the actions of other individuals or organizations and gathers information on them (usually to gain an advantage).
* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-29, volume=407, issue=8842, page=55, magazine=(The Economist)
, title= To act as a spy.
To spot; to catch sight of.
* Jonathan Swift
* Latimer
To search narrowly; to scrutinize.
* Shakespeare
To explore; to view; inspect and examine secretly, as a country.
* Bible, Numbers xxi. 32
barf (US), vomit, spew
to barf (US), throw up, vomit, spew (also figurative )
One who exerts power, or has the power to act; an actor.
One who acts for, or in the place of, another (the principal), by authority from him; one intrusted with the business of another; a substitute; a deputy; a factor.
An active power or cause; that which has the power to produce an effect; as, a physical, chemical, or medicinal agent ; as, heat is a powerful agent.
(computing) In the client-server model, the part of the system that performs information preparation and exchange on behalf of a client or server. Especially in the phrase “intelligent agent” it implies some kind of autonomous process which can communicate with other agents to perform some collective task on behalf of one or more humans.
(grammar) The participant of a situation that carries out the action in this situation, e.g. "the boy" in the sentences "The boy kicked the ball" and "The ball was kicked by the boy".
As nouns the difference between spy and agent
is that spy is a person who secretly watches and examines the actions of other individuals or organizations and gathers information on them (usually to gain an advantage) while agent is one who exerts power, or has the power to act; an actor.As a verb spy
is to act as a spy.spy
English
Noun
(spies)Travels and travails, passage=Even without hovering drones, a lurking assassin, a thumping score and a denouement, the real-life story of Edward Snowden, a rogue spy on the run, could be straight out of the cinema. But, as with Hollywood, the subplots and exotic locations may distract from the real message: America’s discomfort and its foes’ glee.}}
Derived terms
* spy ringVerb
- During the Cold War, Russia and America would each spy on each other for recon.
- I think I can spy that hot guy coming over here.
- One in reading, skipped over all sentences where he spied a note of admiration.
- Look about with your eyes; spy what things are to be reformed in the church of England.
- It is my nature's plague / To spy into abuses.
- Moses sent to spy Jaazer, and they took the villages thereof.
Derived terms
* spy onSee also
*Anagrams
* ---- ==Norwegian Bokmål==Noun
Verb
Synonyms
* (l)References
* ----agent
English
(wikipedia agent)Noun
(en noun)- Heaven made us agents , free to good or ill. --Dryden.
- I see in him [Moby Dick] outrageous strength, with an inscrutable malice sinewing it. That inscrutable thing is chiefly what I hate; and be the white whale agent , or be the white whale principal, I will wreak that hate upon him. --Herman Melville, , ch. 36