Sherlock Holmes

Proper noun

Sherlock Holmes

1. A series of novels by Arthur Conan Doyle about a consulting detective with keen observational awareness, astute logical reasoning and professional forensic skills; also related media based on the books, such as movies.
2. The fictional detective who is the protagonist of the series.
   • “Oh, hullo, Mrs Cream.” The woman she was addressing was tall and thin with a hawk-like face that reminded me of Sherlock Holmes. She had an ink spot on her nose, the result of working on her novel of suspense. [...] This was the first time I had seen Ma Cream today, she having gone off around noon...1960, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, “V & XX, XII”, in Jeeves in the Offing, London: Herbert Jenkins, →OCLC
3. (broadly, figuratively) Any person who has or is considered to have great powers of observation and deduction.
   • And proof was soon evident that he needed to be a Sherlock Holmes.1937, Ion Idriess, Over The Range, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, published 1947, page 191
   • What powers of deduction! . . . And what assurance! . . . A real Sherlock Holmes! I really didn’t think detectives like that existed, except in books!1978, Leslie Lonsdale-Cooper, Michael Turner, transl., Tintin in America (The Adventures of Tintin), Egmont, published 2012, →ISBN, page 45

   Synonyms:

   Sherlock, Holmes