Word.ws English Dictionary

detectiving

detectiving noun: detective work; investigation. Also the present participle and gerund of detective.

Noun

detectiving (uncountable)

  1. (informal) Detective work; investigation.
    • Basically, Donna was an orphan (and still is -- the retcon of her Paradise Island/Wonder Woman origins does not affect her past before the fire) and she had Dick Grayson (Nightwing) perform some detectiving to find her true parents.1991 March 5, Kevin J. Chen, “Troia transition”, in rec.arts.comics (Usenet)
    • Angered, Anonymous went into it's^([sic]) usual methods of punishing those who would stop the lulz. A two pronged attack of internet detectiving and full disclosure of DOX, and flooding their sites with requests to the point of unusability.2008 February 9, anonymous author, “scifag to anonfags: don't do this "for Lisa"”, in alt.religion.scientology (Usenet)

Also used as

detectiving is also the present participle and gerund of detective.

Origin of detectiving

From detective + -ing.

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

Questions about detectiving

What does detectiving mean?
Detectiving means detective work; investigation.
What part of speech is detectiving?
Detectiving is a noun.

Words near detectiving in the dictionary

  1. detective sergeants
  2. detective work
  3. detectived
  4. detectivelike
  5. detectives
  6. detectiving
  7. detectivities
  8. detectivity
  9. detectograph
  10. detectographs
  11. detector

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: detectiving (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “detectiving.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/detectiving. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.