Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use detect in a sentence

40 example sentences · verb, adjective

Detect means to discover or notice, especially by careful search, examination, or probing. Example: “The forensic examiners detected tiny traces of the poison on the suspect's gloves.”

Examples of detect by meaning

verbTo discover or notice, especially by careful search, examination, or probing.

  • The forensic examiners detected tiny traces of the poison on the suspect's gloves.
  • On entering the room, I immediately detected the smell of gas.

verbTo work or solve cases as a detective.

  • In a detective story, a detective detects; an active effort is made to determine who committed a given crime, and detecting the identity of a criminal could not be done until there were detectives.1991, Hillary Waugh, Hillary Waugh's Guide to Mysteries & Mystery Writing Novel, Writer's Digest Books, →ISBN, page 11
  • That aversion is tested when he teams up with Pikachu (voiced by Ryan Reynolds), his father's detecting partner, after the father appears to have been killed in an accident.2019 May 9, Ben Kenigsberg, “'Pokémon Detective Pikachu' Review: A Cat and (Electric) Mouse Game”, in The New York Times, archived from the...

More sentences with detect

  • Gravity waves, while predicted by theory for decades, have been notoriously difficult to detect.From the entry wave
  • A single locus governing the petal colour character was detected on the linkage group A2.From the entry character
  • If you detect a person shop stealing, report it to the police.From the entry shop steal
  • The proximity of the heat source allowed it to be detected by the sensor.From the entry proximity
  • Internal bleeding is often difficult to detect and can lead to death in a short time.From the entry bleeding
  • The detected submarine was tracked by sonar, it was easy once they knew where to look.From the entry detected
  • Some of the earliest discoveries of exoplanets were roasters because they are the least difficult to detect.From the entry roaster
  • Monitoring wells are installed downgradient of a contamination source to detect a contaminant plume.From the entry downgradient
  • Onboard Doppler radar can warn pilots about wet microbursts by detecting the associated column of rapidly-descending rain.From the entry Doppler radar
  • I detect a significant increase in her kilogrammage — in other words, she's put on weight!From the entry kilogrammage
  • They were able to detect the sunken wreck using sonar.From the entry sonar
  • The instrument detected an increase in radioactivity.From the entry instrument
  • The camera detects IR light beyond the visible spectrum.From the entry IR
  • I accidentally dropped the bottle of ammonia and after few seconds, a very pungent stench could be detected.From the entry pungent
  • A motion sensor detected movement in the empty room.From the entry sensor
  • We detected the submarine long before it observed us.From the entry detected
  • CJCS Counterdrug Execute Order (EXORD) authorizes continued DOD support to law enforcement efforts to detect, monitor and interdict drug trafficking.From the entry execute order
  • Exceptions are thrown when some module of the project detects an error condition or if it handles some standard Java throwables.From the entry throwable
  • This new product detects radar in the K band.From the entry K band
  • As the planet orbits the star, it causes a wobble in the star's motion, which can be detected as a small but observably large Doppler effect.From the entry observably
  • These use geometry measurement and imaging to detect abnormalities such as missing or defective fastenings.2026 March 18, Peter Plisner, “Tackling broken rails: the skills and technology improving safety”, in RAIL, number 1057, pages 30-31. From the entry abnormality
  • Some are mere lumps of pigment that detect light; others are simple cups lacking lenses.2026 February 23, Carl Zimmer, “The Rise of Eyes Began With Just One. Even Charles Darwin was puzzled by the evolution of the vertebrate…. From the entry cyclops
  • No problem here - the detector detected no abnormal temperatures anywhere in the consist.2026 March 18, Greg Morse, “1996 crash driving freight reforms”, in RAIL, number 1057, page 50. From the entry detector
  • When a suitable site block is detected, the villager starts pathfinding to it, staking a provisional claim.2024 December 11 (last accessed), “Villager”, in Minecraft Wiki. From the entry pathfinding
  • Allentown is installing devices throughout Center City to detect gunshots, city officials said at news conference Tuesday.2024 January 31, Lindsay Weber, “Pa. city to install LPRs, gunshot detection devices that record video evidence”, in Police1, archived…. From the entry Allentown
  • Recent freight accidents have already identified the lack of lineside technology to detect non-rotating wheels.2023 October 18, Mel Holley, “Network News: Severe wheel flat led to freight derailment”, in RAIL, number 994, page 17. From the entry non-rotating
  • Given how effectively DBT detects cancer, it may eventually become the new gold standard in breast imaging.2022 October 4, “Tomosynthesis”, in Cleveland Clinic, archived from the original on 13 Feb 2025. From the entry tomosynthesis
  • The researchers found that "instead of exiftool detecting the metadata of the file it executes our payload."2022 April 26, Juha Saarinen, "Google's VirusTotal Service Vulnerable for Over Eight Months", iTnews. From the entry djvu
  • Just on Sunday, Zhuhai announced it detected another Covid-19 from Macao.2022 August 10, “Zhuhai detects another imported Covid-19 case from Macao”, in Macao News, archived from the original on 21 Apr 2024, City. From the entry Gongbei
  • But a set of worrisome regulatory loopholes kept them from detecting this lurking whale.2021 May 18, Alexis Goldstein, “These Invisible Whales Could Sink the Economy”, in The New York Times, →ISSN. From the entry whale
  • The event releases a bright burst of energy that can be detected by astronomers.2020 October 15, Sophie Lewis, “Star dies by ‘spaghettification’ as it’s consumed by supermassive black hole”, in CBS News, archived from…. From the entry spaghettification
  • Outgassing of hydrogen was detected from the holelike defects on the treated surface.2019 October 30, Naoya Miyauchi, Tomoya Iwasawa, Taro Yakabe, Masahiro Tosa, Toyohiko Shindo, Shoji Takagi, Akiko N. Itakura…. From the entry holelike
  • Abnormity was detected during the flight of the rocket, which blasted off at 7:23 p.m.2017, Xinhua News, China says launch of Long March-5 Y2 "unsuccessful". From the entry abnormity
  • The autostop beams would detect people ahead and apply the brakes.2016, RJ Bailey, Safe From Harm, →ISBN. From the entry autostop
  • Instead of detecting activity, the accelerometers can also be set to detecting inactivity, often also per axis.2016, Roman Szewczyk, Ivan Kaštelan, Miodrag Temerinac, Embedded Engineering Education, page 175. From the entry autosleep
  • In addition, 10-hydroxy aloin and elgonica dimers were detected in smaller amounts.2016 February 17, “The Inhibitory Effect of Natural Products on Protein Fibrillation May Be Caused by Degradation Products – A Study Using…. From the entry elgonica

Meaning of detect

  1. verb To discover or notice, especially by careful search, examination, or probing.
  2. verb To work or solve cases as a detective.
  3. adjective Detected.

Full definition of detect

Questions about detect in a sentence

How do you use detect in a sentence?
Detect is used as a verb and adjective. For example: “The forensic examiners detected tiny traces of the poison on the suspect's gloves.”
What is a short sentence with detect?
“The instrument detected an increase in radioactivity.”
What does detect mean?
Detect means to discover or notice, especially by careful search, examination, or probing.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: detect (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use detect in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/detect. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.