spähen

German

Etymology

From Middle High German spehen, from Old High German spehōn, spiohōn,[1] from Proto-Germanic *spehōną (“to see, look”), from Proto-Indo-European *speḱ- (“to look”).

Cognate with Old Norse speja (“to spy”) ( > Danish spejde). Compare French épier and Italian spiare, both of Germanic origin. Non-Germanic cognates include Latin speciō, Avestan 𐬯𐬞𐬀𐬯𐬫𐬈𐬌𐬙𐬌‎ (spasyeiti) and Sanskrit पश्यति (páśyati).

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ˈʃpɛː.ən/
  • Audio(file)

Verb

spähen (third-person singular simple present späht, past tense spähte, past participle gespäht, auxiliary haben)

  1. to peer, peek
  2. to spy

Conjugation

References

  1. ↑ Kluge, Friedrich (1989), “spähen”, in Elmar Seebold, editor, Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache [Etymological dictionary of the German language] (in German), 22nd edition, →ISBN

Further reading

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