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. Richard Walton:

   While I cannot go into further details regarding this live investigation, I can confirm that a team of officers, led by a senior detective from the Met's Counter Terrorism Command, are working closely with the Tunisian authorities on both investigations and we have advised the coroner of the connection between the two.

2. Godwin Jr.:

   When the detective walked up, she didn’t have to open her mouth because her vest said ‘homicide,’.

3. Chicago Police Department:

   Chief Johnson has significant experience managing large-scale special events and was instrumental in the operational planning and response of the 2012 NATO Summit, he has also served as a supervisor in the detective bureau and is currently completing his master’s degree in public policy and administration at Northwestern University.

4. Brian Vecci:

   What’s clear to me -- and this is true of pretty much every big data breach -- the preventive controls were broken, or the detective controls were broken, meaning, either too many people had access to the information, or the people that had access weren’t being recorded and analyzed. Or both.

5. Leif Tapanila:

   It's a detective story, we're using our tools to read the rocks and piece the crater back together.

Images & Illustrations of detective

Popularity rank by frequency of use