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spy: spy: [13] A spy is etymologically someone who ‘looks’. The word was adapted from Old French espie ‘watcher, spy’, a derivative of espier ‘watch, spy’ (from which English gets the verb spy, and also espy [14] and espionage [18]). This in turn was formed from the borrowed Germanic base *spekh- (source of German spähen ‘reconnoitre, watch’ and Swedish speja ‘spy, scout’), which went back ultimately to Indo- European *spek- ‘look’ (source of English inspect, spectator, etc).
=> espionage, expect, inspect, special, spectator
Jacobin: early 14c., in reference to an order of Dominican friars, from Old French Jacobin (13c.) "Dominican friar" (also, in the Middle East, "a Copt"); so called because the order built its first convent near the church of Saint-Jacques in Paris (the masc. proper name Jacques is from Late Latin Iacobus; see Jacob). The Revolutionary extremists made their club headquarters there October 1789 and supported Robespierre during the Terror. It was suppressed in November 1794. In English, used generically of radicals and allegedly radical reformers since 1793. Related: Jacobinism.
rapier (n.): "light, sharp-pointed sword," 1550s, from Middle French rapière, from espee rapiere "long, pointed two-edged sword" (late 15c.), in which the adjective is of uncertain origin, perhaps from derisive use of raspiere "poker, scraper." Dutch, Danish rapier, German Rappier are from French.
sphere (n.): mid-15c., Latinized spelling of Middle English spere (c. 1300) "cosmos; space, conceived as a hollow globe about the world," from Anglo-French espiere, Old French espere (13c., Modern French sphère), from Latin sphaera "globe, ball, celestial sphere" (Medieval Latin spera), from Greek sphaira "globe, ball, playing ball, terrestrial globe," of unknown origin.

From late 14c. in reference to any of the supposed concentric, transparent, hollow, crystalline globes of the cosmos believed to revolve around the earth and contain the planets and the fixed stars; the supposed harmonious sound they made rubbing against one another was the music of the spheres (late 14c.). Also from late 14c. as "a globe; object of spherical form, a ball," and the geometric sense "solid figure with all points equidistant from the center." Meaning "range of something, place or scene of activity" is first recorded c. 1600 (as in sphere of influence, 1885, originally in reference to Anglo-German colonial rivalry in Africa).
spire (n.): Old English spir "a sprout, shoot, spike, blade, tapering stalk of grass," from Proto-Germanic *spiraz (cognates: Old Norse spira "a stalk, slender tree," Dutch spier "shoot, blade of grass," Middle Low German spir "a small point or top"), from PIE *spei- "sharp point" (see spike (n.1)). Meaning "tapering top of a tower or steeple" first recorded 1590s (a sense attested in Middle Low German since late 14c. and also found in the Scandinavian cognates).
terrorism (n.): 1795, in specific sense of "government intimidation during the Reign of Terror in France" (March 1793-July 1794), from French terrorisme, from Latin terror (see terror).
If the basis of a popular government in peacetime is virtue, its basis in a time of revolution is virtue and terror -- virtue, without which terror would be barbaric; and terror, without which virtue would be impotent. [Robespierre, speech in French National Convention, 1794]
General sense of "systematic use of terror as a policy" is first recorded in English 1798 (in reference to the Irish Rebellion of that year). At one time, a word for a certain kind of mass-destruction terrorism was dynamitism (1883); and during World War I frightfulness (translating German Schrecklichkeit) was used in Britain for "deliberate policy of terrorizing enemy non-combatants."
espial: "The action of watching or catching sight of something or someone", Late Middle English (in the sense 'spying'): from Old French espiaille, from espier 'espy'.