sleuth

noun \ ˈslüth \

|Updated on: 12 Aug 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

Twitter sleuths have already seized the trail, with more than 1,000 following, in essence, nothing.

— ira winderman, Sun-Sentinel.com, "Inside the stealth (but not burner) Twitter account of Pat Riley," 24 June 2018
The company has repeatedly cast Kogan as a singularly bad apple, while the armchair sleuths of the internet have used his Russian heritage and research ties to St. Petersburg University to accuse him of being a Russian spy.

— issie lapowsky, WIRED, "The Man Who Saw the Dangers of Cambridge Analytica Years Ago," 19 June 2018
What is commonly called the Lost Colony has captured the imagination of generations of professional and amateur sleuths, but the colonists' fate is not the only mystery.

— andrew lawler, Science | AAAS, "Archaeologists start a new hunt for the fabled Lost Colony of the New World," 6 June 2018
Finally, a team physician for the Eagles, a sleuth named Gary Dorshimer, sent him to the Mayo Clinic.

— peter king, SI.com, "Matt Millen Fights For His Life: ‘It’s Getting Late. We Need a Big Stop’," 14 May 2018
Tracy Smith: Michelle called herself a citizen sleuth.

— CBS News, "Has "The Golden State Killer" been caught?," 28 Apr. 2018
But Twitter lit up with die-hard Beyoncé fans and sleuths hell-bent on discovering the identity of the face-biting actress.

— bridget read, Vogue, "The Internet Demands to Know: Who Bit Beyoncé?," 26 Mar. 2018
Benson’s original Nancy Drew, depicted in books such as The Hidden Staircase, The Secret at Shadow Ranch, and The Clue in the Crumbling Wall, was a brash and daring sleuth.

— jennifer fisher, Smithsonian, "The Adventurous Writer Who Brought Nancy Drew To Life," 2 July 2018
Well worth a read, especially for would-be genealogy sleuths tempted to follow in her footsteps.

— sarah mupo, STAT, "The 39 best health and science books to read this summer," 25 June 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 that's not all some social media sleuthing revealed.

— lindsey v thompson, Teen Vogue, "Bella Hadid and The Weeknd Spotted Hanging Out in Paris," 1 June 2018
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

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.