I see you.

Dear Word Detective: Lately I’ve been reading a lot about spies, mostly Russian, and it occurred to me that I have no idea where the word “spy” came from. Is it related to, or maybe short for, “espionage”? — Boris Badenov, Undisclosed Location.

Very funny. You think I don’t recognize you from the old Rocky & Bullwinkle show? How are things in Pottsylvania? Natasha? Mister Big? Speaking of your depraved ilk, have you seen the FX cable series “The Americans”? It’s about two Soviet spies living as a typical couple in suburban Washington, DC in the 1980s, where they match wits with John-Boy Walton. We watched the show for a while, but eventually we realized that every week somebody was going to be kidnapped and tortured in a deserted warehouse that started to look very familiar. Not exactly John le Carre level intrigue. I think this show needs a bigger budget and much better writers.

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) defines “spy” (the noun) as “One who spies upon or watches a person or persons secretly; a secret agent whose business it is to keep a person, place, etc., under close observation; especially one employed by a government in order to obtain information relating to the military or naval affairs of other countries, or to collect intelligence of any kind.” The noun “spy” dates back to the middle of the 13th century, derived from the Old French noun “espie,” meaning “watcher,” which was based on the verb “espier,” meaning “to spy or watch,” which also gave us the English verb “to spy” at roughly the same time in the 12th century.

But wait! There’s more! From the same Old French roots that gave us “spy” as both a noun and verb, we also developed “espionage,” which means, to quote the American Heritage Dictionary, “The act or practice of spying or of using spies to obtain secret information, as about another government or a business competitor.” “Espionage” was a bit late to the party, first appearing in English in the late 18th century, and is a fairly direct borrowing of the French “espionnage,” from “espion,” a spy. So “spy” is more than just a shortened form of “espionage,” but the two words are closely related.

Although we use the verb “spy” today primarily in the sense of “surreptitious observer,” one notable exception to the word’s cloak and dagger overtones is the use of “spy” to mean simply “notice,” “discern,” “discover” or “detect” (“Looking out to Sea in hopes of seeing a Ship, then fancy at a vast Distance I spy’d a Sail.” Daniel Defoe, 1719). This sense is a development of the earlier use of “spy” to mean “to examine closely, observe carefully” (“I spied the whole ground, and never saw a beast.” 1893), which lives on in our use of “spyglass” to mean a small telescope. Spies may use spyglasses to spy on someone, but the term comes from this “examine carefully” sense.

 On second thought…

Dear Word Detective: “Tergiversate” is not listed in Roget’s Thesaurus nor in my unabridged Webster’s Dictionary. From the context in which it appeared, I suspect it means equivocate or mislead, though now I can’t recall where I saw it. (That’s what happens to ninety-year-old brains.) — Dan Chasman.

Wow. My brain must be older than I thought it was, because I’ve been forgetting that sort of thing since I was in my late twenties. For example, I used to routinely forget where I parked the car when we lived in Brooklyn, so we always had to allow extra time to find it when we wanted to go somewhere. Then one day the car was, sadly, stolen. At least I think it was. It’s hard to say for sure. That was thirty years ago, and it may still be parked wherever I left it, somewhere near Prospect Park.

I’m shocked, shocked, to hear that your Webster’s unabridged dictionary doesn’t include “tergiversate.” Oddly enough, the free dictionary at Merriam-Webster.com does, so there’s that. Incidentally, am I the only one having difficulty pronouncing this word? According to the M-W website, it’s pronounced “TERGE-i-ver-sate” with a soft “g.” Fair warning: I’m gonna forget that in about ten minutes and be back to saying “ter-giver-sate.”

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) also lists “tergiversate,” and helpfully defines it as “To practice tergiversation.” That seems a bit perverse, but the noun “tergiversation” actually showed up in English in the late 16th century (1570), while the verb toddled in about a century later (1678). “Tergiversation” comes from the Latin verb “tergiversari,” which means “to turn one’s back” or “to evade,” and is formed from “tergum” (the back) plus “vertere,” to turn.

The general meaning of “tergiversation” is “turning one’s back” on something or someone in a variety of metaphorical senses. To “tergiversate” can mean to abandon a cause to which one was formerly devoted, e.g., to quit a political party or cause and embrace its opponents. It can also mean to “turn one’s back” on honor and honesty, to evade an issue or question, to prevaricate, equivocate and deceive. The politician who devotes five hundred words to avoiding a simple “yes” or “no” answer to a questioner is “tergiversating,” as is the candidate who campaigns on one side of an issue and flips to the other as soon as the polls close (the OED lists “turncoating” as a synonym). Given that these sorts of behavior are standard operating procedure in our modern democracies, it’s surprising that “tergiversation” isn’t a more popular word. Of course, “lying” and “flip-flopping” are both much easier to spell.