sleuth

play

noun \ˈslüth\

Definition of sleuth

: detective

See sleuth defined for English-language learners

See sleuth defined for kids

sleuth was our Word of the Day on 10/05/2013. Hear the podcast!

Examples of sleuth in a Sentence

the popular TV sleuth lives a much more action-packed life than do his real-world counterparts

Recent Examples of sleuth from the Web

The tart-tongued kid is chief meteorologist Ted Pretty's son, as one internet sleuth named Luke O'Neil uncovered, and Pretty himself gamely confirmed.

— raisa bruner, Time, "This FOX Weather Reporter Got Unflinchingly Sassed By His Own Son On-Air," 29 June 2017
Neither of his leads in the Boston heist is new, but the tenacious sleuth hopes the bigger reward will help.

— mike corder, The Seattle Times, "Dutch sleuth hopes for breakthrough in biggest US art heist," 27 June 2017
How do cyber sleuths go about making security systems more secure? Infiltrate them.

— christina hall, Detroit Free Press, "Students put cybersecurity skills to the test in cybertruck challenge," 27 June 2017
So we are forced to be sleuths, decoding the slippery nuances of a language that belittles us and offers no obvious translation.

— nandi rose plunkett, Esquire, "Don't Call Me the Girl in the Band," 20 June 2017
Well, sure it’s possible, so long as the supine sleuth has friends like Bo, who digs up the police files for his old boss and drives him around to possible crime scenes.

— marilyn stasio, New York Times, "In a New Crime Lineup, a Supine Swede and Private Eyes With Bad Habits," 7 June 2017
Around the globe sleuths set to deciphering what the word means.

— bob warren, NOLA.com, "Covfefe mystery solved - and by a small-town mayor," 31 May 2017
In the second half of the book, Susan morphs from armchair detective to amateur sleuth.

— david martindale, star-telegram.com, "‘Magpie Murders’ a clever riff on the whodunit genre," 30 May 2017
FACEBOOK TWITTER EMAIL ME PRINT COMMENTS Good Production will create a contemporary adaptation of the iconic elderly sleuth titled 'Miss Ma.'

— lee hyo-won, The Hollywood Reporter, "Agatha Christie's Miss Marple to Be Adapted Into South Korean TV Series," 25 May 2017

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'sleuth.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Origin and Etymology of sleuth

short for sleuthhound

NEW! Time Traveler

First Known Use: 1872

See Words from the same year

Other Legal Terms

actionable, alienable, carceral, chattel, complicity, decedent, larceny, malfeasance, modus operandi

sleuth

verb

Definition of sleuth

intransitive verb
: to act as a detective : search for information
transitive verb
: to search for and discover

Recent Examples of sleuth from the Web

The greenback cutthroat rescue ramped up in 2012 when sleuthing by a University of Colorado team verified that the one true population of greenback cutthroat trout lives along a 3.5-mile stretch of Bear Creek southwest of Colorado Springs.

— bruce finley, The Denver Post, "Colorado’s rarest fish: greenback cutthroats endure electro-zapping, netting and squeezing as biologists try to save state fish from extinction," 13 June 2017
But a lucky devil gets to revel By sleuthing the perfect angle.

— pioneer press, Twin Cities, "2017 Pioneer Press Treasure Hunt clue 6," 26 Jan. 2017

Did You Know?

They were the footprints of a gigantic hound! Those canine tracks in Arthur Conan Doyle's The Hound of the Baskervilles set the great Sherlock Holmes sleuthing on the trail of a murderer. It was a case of art imitating etymology. When Middle English speakers first borrowed sleuth from Old Norse, the term referred to "the track of an animal or person." In Scotland, a sleuthhound was a bloodhound used to hunt game or track down fugitives from justice. In 19th century U.S. English, sleuthhound became an epithet for a detective and was soon shortened to sleuth. From there, it was only a short leap to turning sleuth into a verb describing what a sleuth does.