Meaning & use
sleuth
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Meanings
nouncountableinformalhumorous
A person who investigates a crime or puzzle, especially one who does it without being an official detective.
Grammar: Countable: an amateur sleuth, two sleuths.
Patterns
- a sleuth who does something
The retired teacher became the neighborhood's amateur sleuth after the burglary.
Online sleuths traced the stolen painting through auction records.
She plays a clever sleuth in a series of country-house mysteries.
verbtransitive or intransitiveinformal
To search carefully for facts or clues, as a detective would.
Grammar: Often used with out, around or a clause: sleuth around; sleuth out the truth.
Patterns
- sleuth around
- sleuth something out
He spent the weekend sleuthing around the archives for his family's history.
The reporters sleuthed out the source of the leak.
Word forms
| plural | sleuths |
|---|---|
| third person singular | sleuths |
| past tense | sleuthed |
| past participle | sleuthed |
| -ing form | sleuthing |
Common combinations
- amateur sleuth
- The baker turns amateur sleuth when a customer disappears.
- online sleuths
- Online sleuths pieced together the photo's location.
- play sleuth
- The children played sleuth and searched the garden for clues.
- sleuth around
- I sleuthed around the office until I found who moved my stapler.
- master sleuth
- The novel's master sleuth solves every case before lunch.
Synonyms and how they differ
- detective
- A detective is normally a professional, while a sleuth is often an enthusiast or a character in fiction.
- investigator
- Investigator is neutral and official-sounding, whereas sleuth is lighter and a little playful.
- snoop
- Snoop suggests nosy prying and is usually negative, but a sleuth is admired for being clever.
- gumshoe
- Gumshoe is an old-fashioned slang word for a private detective, with a film-noir flavor sleuth does not have.
Word family
- sleuthing noun
- the activity of investigating or hunting for clues
- sleuth-hound noun
- an old word for a bloodhound, from which sleuth comes
Commonly confused: sleuth or sloth?
sleuth vs sloth
A sloth is a slow tree-dwelling animal, and it is also an old word for laziness. Sleuth is a detective.
Practice
After the fridge kept being emptied, Dana decided to ___ out who the culprit was.
Choose one answer.
To sleuth something out means to investigate it like a detective. Scout does not take out who in this way, and sloth and sleep do not make sense here.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “sleuth”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.