detective

plural detectives

1. governmentA police officer tasked with collecting evidence and information in order to solve a crime; an investigator.

   He worked as a detective with the agency for five years.

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   The detective kept them in view. He made his way casually along the inside of the shelter until he reached an open scuttle close to where the two men were standing talking. Eavesdropping was not a thing Larard would have practised from choice, but there were times when, in the public interest, he had to do it, and this was one of them.

   1928, Lawrence R. Bourne, chapter 7, in Well Tackled!

   Synonyms: inspector, police detective, sleuth, DT, Det, Det.

2. A person employed to find information not otherwise available to the public.

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   […] Sherlock Holmes remarked calmly. […] "Well, I have a trade of my own. I suppose I am the only one in the world. I'm a consulting detective, if you can understand what that is. Here in London we have lots of Government detectives and lots of private ones. When these fellows are at fault they come to me, and I manage to put them on the right scent. They lay all the evidence before me, and I am generally able, by the help of my knowledge of the history of crime, to set them straight. There is a strong family resemblance about misdeeds, and if you have all the details of a thousand at your finger ends, it is odd if you can't unravel the thousand and first.[…]"

   1887, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “A Study in Scarlet”, in Beeton’s Christmas Annual, London; New York, N.Y.: Ward, Lock & Co., part I (Being a reprint from the reminiscences of John H. Watson, M.D., […]), chapter II (The Science of Deduction), pages 12–13

   Had they responded this way in France or America, this wouldn't have surprised me, but wasn't everyone in England supposed to be a detective? Wasn't every crime, no matter how complex, solved in a timely fashion by either a professional or a hobbyist? That's the impression you get from British books and TV shows. Sherlock Holmes, Miss Marple, Hetty Wainthropp, Inspector George Gently: they come from every class and corner of the country. There’s even Edith Pargeter's Brother Cadfael, a Benedictine monk who solved crimes in twelfth-century Shrewsbury. No surveillance cameras, no fingerprints, not even a telephone, and still he cracked every case that came his way.

   2013 March 25, David Sedaris, "Long Way Home" in The New Yorker

   Synonyms: private detective, private investigator, sleuth, bloodhound, Dick Tracy, Hercule Poirot, Jessica Fletcher, Miss Marple

3. rarenon-native speakers' EnglishA work of detective fiction.

   I very^([sic]) like classic Russian literature. Besides it I read detectives by Chase, newspapers and magazines with news and interesting topics.

   1999 October 13, [Anastassia] <nasta123@mail.ru>, “Looking for prince...”, in soc.penpals (Usenet)

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   Read books that are of interest to you (no matter what kinds of, I, for instance, read detectives, help a lot), try not to use Engl-Russ. Dict. while reading; […]

   1997 May 15, Mourzenko, “”, in relcom.humor (Usenet)

   SI-Fi stands for Science Fiction? I never read SF, with one exception: Jules Verne as a child. Gene, you are right: never heard of Douglas Adams. (Nor do I read detectives, except one or two as a youth).

   2003 April 19, pieter, “Gene Ward Smith Shrine now online!!!”, in talk.religion.course-miracle (Usenet)

1. not comparableEmployed in detecting.

present singular third person detectives · participle present detectiving · participle past detectived · past detectived

1. informalintransitiveuncommonTo be or act as or like a detective.

   The terminal server manager has to go detectiving around every so often collecting up these ``idle osf users and manually log out their ports on the terminal server.

   1995 November 1, System Janitor, “LAT sessions hang...”, in comp.unix.osf.osf1 (Usenet)

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   Unfortunately for classics in England, the time when Erasmus and his mates got detectiving and sorted out more or less how classical Greek and Latin had been pronounced just preceded the great Vowel Shift in English, so when all the English long vowels made their exciting trek round the mouth they took the fresh new Latin ones with them for the ride.

   1998 May 3, Colin Fine, “Seezer or Kaiser - Spoken Latin”, in sci.lang (Usenet)

   Truthfully, if this guy just wants information, his time is better spent detectiving instead of lawyering. If he actually files and subpoenas though, the information is really easy to compel in many cases.

   2003 November 2, Chas, “Seriously considering filing lawsuit.....not a joke.”, in misc.legal (Usenet)

2. informaltransitiveuncommonTo investigate or find information about (someone or something) as or like a detective.

   That sounds like such a super fun game. Wish I'd been there to try it myself or watch you and hear what you were detectiving.

   2006 March 16, Polly Esther, “I won!”, in rec.crafts.textiles.quilting (Usenet)

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   But, what is a jew^([sic]) doing giving a child the protection of a Catholic umbella during WWII? And that the country wasn't mentioned, is curious, or that nationality. Polish Jew? German Jew? etc. for this information has merit for detectiving the papers.

   1998 January 4, jeanne khan, quoting Mr. G., “sources for poems/disc. of G and J/your”, in rec.arts.poems (Usenet)

   Next, I called my mother. I called up, again detectiving the phone number (I haven't had contact with them for nine years, my decision but no thought to them) and the father answered the phone. I almost vomited. You know what strangely broke my heart? That I couldn't recognize the voice of my own "father".

   2000 April 19, Poettttt, “It was a dark and stormy night.... a long Empost.”, in alt.support.eating-disord (Usenet)

   It's a response to his challenge when I asked where "up here" is. So I'm going to tell him _exactly_ where "up here" is as soon as I have "detectived" it.

   2001 December 30, Johnny Johnson, “Venom Take 2”, in alt.hi-po.big-block-ford-mercury (Usenet)

   After that he had problems when, while going back in USA for a movie premiere and discovered USA authority was detectiving his wife, Christian, that was a german^([sic]) on left politic side, and he decided to never get back to USA.

   2005 March 16, [Michele] <micheleulisse@yahoo.com>, “kubrick and artistic freedom and the wandering jewster”, in alt.movies.kubrick (Usenet)