DictionaryAI

detective

USdi-TEK-tiv/dɪˈtɛktɪv/

Pluraldetectives

3 meanings of detective

Practice

  1. 1
    nouncountable
    A police officer assigned to gather evidence and information in order to solve crimes.

    The detective pieced together the suspect's movements from security footage.

    She was promoted to detective after eight years on patrol.

    Similarinvestigator, sleuth

    Note

    The noun began as a shortening. A detective officer or detective policeman lost its second word, and the adjective was left standing alone as a noun. Police usage still treats the word much like a rank, as in promoted to detective. Where police work is not obvious from context, police detective makes the meaning explicit and keeps it apart from the hired investigator.

  2. 2
    nouncountable
    A person hired to uncover information that is not otherwise available to the public.

    The company brought in a detective to investigate the leaked documents.

    Her sister hired a detective to confirm her suspicions about the business partner.

    Similarinvestigator, sleuth

    Note

    Here the detective works for whoever engages them, not for the state. Arthur Conan Doyle's A Study in Scarlet (1887) draws that line itself: Sherlock Holmes calls himself a consulting detective, set against London's many Government detectives. A modifier such as consulting or hired usually marks the sense. The figure became cultural shorthand, and David Sedaris, in The New Yorker in 2013, jokes that everyone in England is supposed to be one.

  3. 3
    adjective
    Concerned with or used in the work of detecting crime or uncovering facts.

    His detective instincts told him the witness's story didn't add up.

    The agency offered detective services to worried clients across the region.

    Similarinvestigative, investigatory

    Note

    This is the oldest layer of the word. It was built from Latin dētēct-, the stem of dētegō "to detect", with the suffix -ive. It classifies rather than grades: work is detective or it is not, and nothing is more detective than something else. It usually stands before its noun, as in detective work or detective instincts, and it is the adjective the police noun was shortened from.

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Origin

The adjective derives from Classical Latin dētēct-, the past participial stem of dētegō ("to detect"), combined with "-ive." The noun is a shortening of a longer phrase such as "detective policeman" or "detective officer."