sleuth

noun \ ˈslüth \

|Updated on: 17 Jun 2018

Examples: sleuth in a Sentence

Editor's Note: Did You Know?

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 camera didn't capture any definitive images, but the amateur sleuths had something to work with: a rough approximation of what time of day the public defilement occurred.

— cleve r. wootson jr., Washington Post, "A corporate executive led a secret double life — as Australia’s ‘poo jogger’," 7 June 2018
Instagram sleuths are pointing to this flirty October 2016 post as proof Kendall and Anwar have fancied each other for a while.

— hanna lustig, Teen Vogue, "Kendall Jenner and Anwar Hadid Reportedly Aren't In a Relationship," 7 June 2018
Twitter sleuths have pointed out that these may not even be the couple's first love tattoos, as both Grande and Davidson appear to have tiny clouds inked on their middle fingers.

— michelle ruiz, Vogue, "Are Pete Davidson and Ariana Grande the Internet's New Favorite Couple?," 4 June 2018
The wife of Philadelphia 76ers executive Bryan Colangelo may actually be the one who used fake social media accounts to trash players and league officials, Twitter sleuths revealed Wednesday.

— ryan gaydos, Fox News, "Wife of Philadelphia 76ers executive possibly tied to fake social media accounts, Twitter sleuths reveal," 31 May 2018
Fanciful or not, preliminary results from the stain sleuths support the notion that these volumes were heavily used tools of their trades and not just pretty objects on a monastery shelf.

— tom avril, Philly.com, "Scans reveal secrets of medieval 'Harry Potter' book and medical texts at Penn," 14 May 2018
Since his attacks seemed to stop in 1986, the Golden State Killer became a source of fascination and frustration for an online community of amateur sleuths trying to track him down.

— erich schwartzel, WSJ, "So-Called Golden State Killer Captured, Authorities Say," 25 Apr. 2018
Goodwin, who is from Ward, Ark., was tracked down and identified by online sleuths led by Black Lives Matter activist Shaun King, who pored over video of the attack frame by frame, the Post reports.

— doug stanglin, USA TODAY, "White nationalist convicted of beating during Charlottesville Unite the Right rally," 2 May 2018
Her book taps into some of the excitement of watching sleuths at work that powered Serial or Netflix’s The Keepers, but also dives into the psychology behind it.

— erin vanderhoof, Vanities, "The Golden State Killer May Be Caught, But Online Detectives Are Still on the Case," 26 Apr. 2018

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

in the meaning defined above

See Words from the same year

sleuth Synonyms

Synonyms

detective, investigator, operative, private detective, private eye, private investigator, sherlock;

Related Words

shadow, tail, tracer, tracker;

fed, Federal, G-man, narc (or nark) [slang], plainclothesman;

Other Legal Terms

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

sleuth

verb

Definition of sleuth

sleuthed; sleuthing; sleuths

intransitive verb

: to act as a detective : search for information

transitive verb

: to search for and discover

Recent Examples of sleuth from the Web

But Young’s sister had done her homework to ensure she’d made the right choice, sleuthing out the breed Young was partial to and even catching him in conversation about dog names.

— nancy kruh, PEOPLE.com, "Meet Chris Young's Adorable Puppy, Porter: 'He Might Lick You to Death!'," 8 May 2018
Doty and her colleagues are now sleuthing out the gene that enables PDN3 to accomplish this feat.

— leslie nemo, Scientific American, "Treating Toxins with Tree Microbes," 1 Nov. 2017
They were sold two years ago, but in the meantime, Trevor had sleuthed a rustic compound based around an honest-to-goodness Craftsman Sears kit house of the sort that sprang up all across America at the turn of the century.

— oberto gili, Vogue, "Napa of Another Time: Restoring a 100-Year-Old Home in Wine Country," 18 Jan. 2018
The birth of eBay signaled an entirely new way of sleuthing out vintage gear.

— nick sullivan, Esquire, "Vintage Expert Sean Crowley Shares His Tips for Scoring the Perfect Find," 5 Jan. 2018
Cincinnati's bus system by the numbers Wochit Troy Miller has been sleuthing Greater Cincinnati's main public transportation agency for years, certainly long before SORTA recently found $8 million just sitting around in its bank account.

— jason williams, Cincinnati.com, "PX: SORTA leader pushes sales tax in Hamilton County – even though he votes in Texas," 15 Feb. 2018
And despite finally learning the name of Kylie's new baby — Stormi Webster — the Internet still cannot stop sleuthing for hints about the origin of the unique moniker.

— melissa minton, Teen Vogue, "Stormi Webster's Name Might Be Connected to Butterflies After All," 8 Feb. 2018
Barron and a team of researchers have spent years sleuthing around the Vatican library, the immense General Archive of the Indies, in Seville, Spain, and in small churches and libraries scattered throughout Latin America.

— laura millan lombrana, Bloomberg.com, "He Struck It Rich in Ecuador. Now He’s Looking for the Lost Cities of Gold," 20 Dec. 2017
Upon closer inspection, though, some sleuthing fans on Reddit got one step ahead of the rest of us and noticed something unusual: a huge ad for the drug Revival covering the side of a city building.

— ashley iasimone, Billboard, "Fake Drug Ad Hints Eminem's New Album Might Be Called 'Revival'," 25 Oct. 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.