Definitions for detective
dɪˈtɛk tɪvde·tec·tive

Princeton's WordNet(3.00 / 2 votes)Rate this definition:

1. detective, investigator, tec, police detective(noun)

   a police officer who investigates crimes

2. detective(noun)

   an investigator engaged or employed in obtaining information not easily available to the public

Wiktionary(0.00 / 0 votes)Rate this definition:

1. detective(Noun)

   a police officer who looks for evidence as part of solving a crime; an investigator.

2. detective(Noun)

   a person employed to find information not otherwise available to the public.

Webster Dictionary(0.00 / 0 votes)Rate this definition:

1. Detective(adj)

   fitted for, or skilled in, detecting; employed in detecting crime or criminals; as, a detective officer

2. Detective(noun)

   one who business it is so detect criminals or discover matters of secrecy

Freebase(5.00 / 1 vote)Rate this definition:

1. Detective

   A detective is an investigator, either a member of a police agency or a private person. The latter may be known as private investigators or "private eyes". Informally, and primarily in fiction, a detective is any licensed or unlicensed person who solves crimes, including historical crimes, or looks into records.

British National Corpus

1. Written Corpus Frequency

   Rank popularity for the word 'detective' in Written Corpus Frequency: #4837

2. Nouns Frequency

   Rank popularity for the word 'detective' in Nouns Frequency: #1483

How to pronounce detective?

1. 

   Alex

   US English

   

   Daniel

   British

   

   Karen

   Australian

   

   Veena

   Indian

How to say detective in sign language?

Numerology

1. Chaldean Numerology

   The numerical value of detective in Chaldean Numerology is: 1

2. Pythagorean Numerology

   The numerical value of detective in Pythagorean Numerology is: 3

Examples of detective in a Sentence

1. Rogers Turrentine:

   There is no mystery, at least not the kind you want. In real life there are no fogbound moors or clues on matchbooks or fifth columnists waiting to be unmasked. it would be nice if here were, because then there would be solutions to things in life, but it doesn't always work that way. Everyone likes a good detective story. I went through my Hammett phase in college. I think the attraction is, in life our mysteries aren't exciting. You know They're just intractable and depressing and enervating. Like, why do we always hurt the ones we love. Where does the money go ...in a detective story, at least the universe makes sense. It was him. He did it. The natural order is disturbed, but the beauty of it is that it's restored again.

2. Rainn Wilson:

   I can relate to someone whose life is falling apart, and they are doing the best to get by, using humor to survive, backstrom really wears his heart on his sleeve and his life is unraveling… I would much rather hang out with that person than a slick procedural detective who has all the answers… it’s human, it’s frail, it’s interesting.

3. Joe Mendoza:

   I think a detective would probably present it to a DA, but a grand jury is not out of play either.

4. Peter Salama:

   It’s really the detective work of epidemiology that will make or break the response to this outbreak.

5. Henry Stawinski:

   Seeing the danger presented by Michael, the shooter, (Detective Colson) took action -- and in doing so, demonstrated extreme heroism because it was his actions that allowed officers to take a position where they could intervene and neutralize the threat, detective Colson drew fire to himself, and in doing so was mortally wounded.

Images & Illustrations of detective

Popularity rank by frequency of use