gumshoe

plural gumshoes

1. A sneaker or rubber overshoe.First known use mid 19th c.
2. slangA detective.First known use early 20th c.

   "Who's this gumshoe guy from the bush league tailin' us?"

   1920, William MacLeod Raine, chapter 20, in The Big-Town Round-Up

   1 more example

   So how does Santa go up and down chimneys and keep his clothes clean? MAIRE NIC SUIBHNE and her junior gumshoes get their claws into assorted Messrs Claus and come up with an answer . . .

   1988 December 16, “Grotto busters”, in Evening Standard, London, →OCLC, page 25, column 2

   Synonyms: detective, dick, private eye, sleuth

present singular third person gumshoes · participle present gumshoeing · participle past gumshoed · past gumshoed

1. slangTo act as a detective.

   But these days, more and more women are gumshoeing through the pages of murder mysteries.

   1988 September 23, Achy Obejas, “Calendar”, in Chicago Reader

   1 more example

   The next thing they did was to send a man sent down there from Baltimore and he spent a good deal of time gumshoeing around in that county trying to get another individual put in as secretary-treasurer.

   1933, United States. Congress. House. Committee on Agriculture, Hearings, page 25