"I Spy Jargon" Trivia Quiz

Answer: Bag job

A 'bag job" in the language of spies is defined as the surreptitious breaking and entering into a building. The Watergate Affair, an example of a notorious breaking and entering crime, was committed by a team of five men, two of whom were former Central Intelligence Agency employees, Bernard L. Barker and James McCord.

Answer: Dynamite Dame

All other answers except Dynamite Dame are correct for the general slang terms used by intelligence operators to entrap either men or women by the use of sexual situations. "Pussy Galore", a character in the Ian Fleming novel, "Goldfinger" would be an example of a "Mata Hari" , "Raven" or "honey pot".

Answer: Floater

A "floater" is a person who is used only one time in an intelligence organization, or a "floater" can also be a person who unknowingly becomes a part of one.

Answer: Surveillance team

"Hunting pack" is one of the terms applied to members of a surveillance team.
Surveillance teams are those agents who secretly collect information without detection. There are four main categories of surveillance teams: visual, audio, moving, and contact.

Answer: Ghoul

Prowling through a cemetery or a graveyard to find a new identity for an undercover assignment is the job of a "ghoul" in spy slang. This then enables the agent to create a "legend" which is the term used for a false identity.

Answer: Agent Provocateur

An "agent provocateur" (French for "inciting agent") is an agent whose main mission is to stir up trouble, or who entices others into rash acts. In the Joseph Conrad 1907 novel "The Secret Agent": A Simple Tale", the character Verloc is the undercover "agent provacateur".

Answer: Forgers

Those groups of people who create forged documents were labelled, "shoemakers" by the author John Le Carre in his novel "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy". In spy lingo, a forged passport is called a "shoe". "Funny paper" and "cobbler" are other slang terms used for the forged documents of an intelligence agency or security service.

Answer: A cowboy

The Central Intelligence Agency, CIA, refers to a rash or policy breaking agent as a "cowboy". Jack Bauer, a character in the hit television series, "24" is a good example of what the CIA would call "a cowboy".

Answer: Mole

A "mole" is an agent who has penetrated into another agency. If the "mole" penetrates a secret agency he/she is called a "double agent". Trying to discover who a mole is in a secret agency, by feeding false information to those that might be suspected "moles", is called a "mole hunt".

Answer: Birdwatcher

"Birdwatcher" is the term for a spy used by British Intelligence. The word spy comes from the French word "espionner", which means "to spy". That word has its origins in the Old Italian word "spione" or "specere". Spies who must use their skills to commit murder are termed "assasins".