sleuth
/sluːθ/US/sluːθ/
sleuth noun: a detective.
Noun (1)
sleuth (plural sleuths)
- A detective.
- Do ye want me to become a sleuth, or engage detectives to track the objects of your erroneous philanthropy?1908, Edith Van Dyne (Frank L. Baum), Aunt Jane’s Nieces at Millville
- “This is a great piece of sleuth work for sure, and it significantly advances efforts to understand the origin of SARS-CoV-2,” said Michael Worobey, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Arizona who was not involved in the study.2021 June 23, Carl Zimmer, quoting Michael Worobey, “Scientist Finds Early Virus Sequences That Had Been Mysteriously Deleted”, in The New York Times, →ISSN
- Synonyms:
- detective, gumshoe, investigator, dick, private eye
- A sleuthhound; a bloodhound.
- An animal’s trail or track.
Verb
sleuth (third-person singular simple present sleuths, present participle sleuthing, simple past and past participle sleuthed)
- To act as a detective; to try to discover who committed a crime, or, more generally, to solve a mystery.
- We must discover where he lives, what he does — sleuth him, in fact!1922, Agatha Christie, The Secret Adversary
- Synonyms:
- gumshoe, shadow, get to the bottom of, solve, work out, absolve, decipher, iron out, meliorate, puzzle out
Noun (2)
sleuth (plural sleuths)
- Slowness; laziness, sloth.
- A group of bears.
- As quietly as if I were practicing to join a sleuth of bears, I crept out the door and went on home, eventually winding up in the garage…1961, Noel Perrin, A Passport Secretly Green, page 89
- If these dainty adventurers weren’t being chased by a sleuth of bears or bogeys, they were being captured by Gypsies or thieves.1995, Bobbie Ann Mason, The Girl Sleuth, page 13
- Synonyms:
- sloth
sleuth meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam
sleuth in Tamil
- துப்பறிபவர்
sleuth in Urdu
- سراغ رساں
sleuth in Bengali
- sleuth
- গোয়েন্দা gōẇenda
sleuth in Malayalam
- (private) detective, (private) investigator, private eye
- അന്വേഷണോദ്യോഗസ്ഥൻ, സ്വകാര്യകുറ്റാന്വേഷകൻ, അപസർപ്പകൻ, സ്വന്തം നിലയിൽ അനേഷണങ്ങൾ നടത്തുന്നയാൾ, കുറ്റാന്വേഷി, പോലീസുദ്യോഗസ്ഥൻ
More languagesFewer languages
- sleuth in Kannada
- ತುಬ್ಬುಗಾರ, ಬೇಟೆನಾಯಿ
- sleuth in Arabic
- جَاسُوس jāsūs, جَاسُوسَة jāsūsa
- sleuth in Indonesian
- reserse, detektif
- sleuth in Persian
- مفتش, کارآگاه, جاسوس
Examples of sleuth in a sentence
- Some scientifically minded sleuths hoped that the optograms of murder victims might betray their killers!
- Three troopers guided by a masked man and a sleuth dog pursued him.
- On TV, sleuthing and romance go together like Steed and Mrs.
Synonyms of sleuth
21 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Forms of sleuth
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | sleuths |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | sleuths |
| present participle | sleuthing |
| past participle | sleuthed |
| past | sleuthed |
Origin of sleuth
Clipping of sleuthhound.
From Old English slǣwþ, corresponding to slow + -th.
Words formed from sleuth
Phrases with sleuth
Words that rhyme with sleuth
Questions about sleuth
- What does sleuth mean?
- Sleuth means a detective.
- What is sleuth in Tamil?
- Sleuth in Tamil is துப்பறிபவர். See Sleuth meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is sleuth?
- Sleuth can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce sleuth?
- Sleuth is pronounced /sluːθ/ (UK).
- What is the plural of sleuth?
- The plural of sleuth is sleuths.
Words near sleuth in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: sleuth (page history and authors); sleuth (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); sleuth (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); গোয়েন্দা (Bengali) (page history and authors); sleuth (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); sleuth (Kannada Wiktionary) (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:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-sleuth.wav.
Cite this entry: “sleuth.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sleuth. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.