Meaning & use
detective
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Meanings
nouncountable
A police officer or investigator whose job is to solve crimes by finding evidence and questioning people.
Grammar: Countable; can be police or private.
Patterns
- a police detective
- hire a private detective
- detective investigates something
The detective interviewed witnesses at the station.
She became a detective after ten years as a patrol officer.
They hired a private detective to find the missing documents.
adjectivebefore a noun
Relating to detection, investigation, or crime-solving stories and work.
Grammar: Only used before nouns: detective work, a detective novel.
Patterns
- detective work
- detective novel
- detective agency
The job requires patient detective work.
She loves reading an old detective novel on weekends.
The detective agency checked the insurance claim.
Word forms
| plural | detectives |
|---|
Common combinations
- police detective
- A police detective took charge of the case.
- private detective
- The family hired a private detective to follow the money.
- detective work
- Finding the error took careful detective work.
- detective story
- The children acted out a detective story.
Synonyms and how they differ
- investigator
- Broader: anyone who examines a case, not always police or crime-focused.
- sleuth
- Informal or old-fashioned, often for an amateur or storybook detective.
- inspector
- A police rank in some forces; narrower than detective as a job title.
Word family
- detect verb
- To discover or notice something hidden.
- detection noun
- The act of discovering something, especially crime or a hidden substance.
- detective work noun
- Careful investigation to find facts.
Commonly confused: detective or detector? detective or defective?
detective vs detector
A detector is a machine that senses something, like smoke; a detective is a person who investigates.
detective vs defective
Defective means faulty; detective means related to investigation.
Practice
Choose the sentence where “detective” is used as an adjective before a noun.
Choose one answer.
In “detective fiction,” detective describes the noun and is not the person doing the action. The other sentences use detective as a noun for a person.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “detective”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.