detect

Formsdetects, detecting, detected

1. 1
   verbtransitive

   To discover or find something by means of careful search, examination, or probing.

   The new equipment can detect even faint traces of gas in the air.

   Investigators detected the fraud after reviewing years of financial records.

   Similardiscover, identify, spot, uncover, sense

   Oppositemiss, overlook

   Note

   Uncovering is the image underneath: Latin detegere, "to uncover", built from de- and tegere, "to cover", a root English also meets in tegument, tile and thatch. In technical writing the subject is often an instrument or a test rather than a person. A spectrograph detects minute quantities of metal, and a poison is detected in a corpse eighty-four days after death. The object is typically something faint, small or hidden.

2. 2
   verbcolloquialintransitive

   To work as a detective, investigating and solving cases.

   They detect well together, splitting up to follow every lead across town.

   She detects in her spare time, piecing together small neighborhood mysteries.

   Similarinvestigate, sleuth

   Note

   Here the noun came first: detect was back-formed from detective, so this verb belongs to the job rather than to the older "discover" verb. It takes no object. In Hillary Waugh's Guide to Mysteries & Mystery Writing (1991), a detective simply detects. Its informal tone suits phrases like Dorothy L. Sayers's "paid to detect" or a "detecting partner".

3. 3
   adjectiveobsolete

   Discovered or exposed; brought to light after being concealed.

   Note

   A past participle taken straight from Latin detectus, without the English -ed ending. It shares its Latin source with the "discover" verb. It does not take degrees: nothing is more detect than something else. Readers meet it only in older texts. In modern writing the form is detected, and detect used as an adjective today would look like a slip rather than a deliberate archaism.

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