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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
detective
noun
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
a detective story
▪ Most detective stories are about a murder.
detective/romantic/historical etc novel
▪ a newly published science fiction novel
private detective
store detective
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADJECTIVE
great
▪ Should you wish advice from the world's greatest detective you may enquire for me at the Rose and Crown.
▪ It was plain that the two great detectives were discomfited by each other's presence.
▪ The Mystery of Morse ... Investigating the great detective.
▪ It took no great detective work to work out where he was, however.
▪ The two great detectives prowled up and down the village street dogged by the two official policemen.
▪ This person claims to be a great detective and yet he has detected nothing, nothing at all.
private
Private eye bin bagged A PRIVATE detective was yesterday fined £150 for stealing a national newspaper executive's rubbish.
▪ Kinsey Millhone, leading private detective of Santa Teresa, California.
▪ Edward is a private detective hired by an antiques dealer who asked Edward to list all of the valuables in the house.
▪ Michael is a private detective and an aspiring writer.
▪ In addition, data could be passed to the police, private detectives or computer database holders.
▪ Perhaps there had once been a private detective in New York with that name.
▪ She wondered if she should hire a private detective to find out who the girl was.
▪ Robert Crais broke into mystery writing not by being a cop, a lawyer or a private detective.
senior
▪ After Courtney's trial a senior detective revealed that Courtney had probably abused 100 other women.
▪ Charlie - that's not his real name - was a policeman, a very senior detective.
▪ The committee is too important to have the senior police detective interest represented on a part-time basis.
young
▪ He was a very intelligent and perceptive young detective.
▪ Meryl followed the young detective constable to the library door with a sick feeling in her stomach.
■ NOUN
constable
▪ The victim, a detective constable, tried to arrest the accused.
▪ The detective constable who was supposed to be guarding him was out of the ward at the time chatting up some nurses.
▪ She harried the detective constable who was checking Christine Mills' alibis.
▪ Meryl followed the young detective constable to the library door with a sick feeling in her stomach.
▪ The door of the interview room swung open and a detective constable swaggered in.
▪ Uniformed men and Wycliffe's detective constables were questioning the very few people who actually lived in the street.
▪ A detective constable was working away in a corner.
▪ The three of them, with four detective constables, would set the ball rolling.
fiction
▪ But it has been in existence for almost as long as there has been detective fiction.
homicide
▪ So is Joe Mantegna, as the homicide detective assigned to the case, telling her to let the law handle it.
▪ The victim was taken to Highland Hospital, where he died about an hour later. Homicide detectives are investigating the case.
▪ We hung out with a homicide detective, and we tried to make it realistic.
▪ Malcolm Ainslie is a disillusioned Catholic priest turned unfaithful husband and crack Miami homicide detective.
inspector
▪ By 1965 things had eased, but my detective inspector still railed against my three-quarter length corduroy car-coat with its red lining.
▪ It was with a detective inspector called Eddy Russell.
novel
▪ One last observation about the detective novel.
▪ It was limited, all gleaned from detective novels.
▪ The same is true for the opening of the detective novel in Task 1.
▪ How does it differ from the detective novel?
▪ The murder helped prove a new science and became the plot in a detective novel.
▪ But otherwise it had all the ingredients of the detective novel, down to a theme, the passion for justice.
▪ Like the detective novel, the romance abides by a hermeneutic code, in which the outcome is always assured.
▪ But characters will be much more present, be seen in much greater, convoluted depth even than in the detective novel.
sergeant
▪ He was asked to wait and then shown into a room where a detective sergeant prepared to take a statement from him.
▪ Lucky the geezer didn't know what a detective sergeant gets paid or he might have got suspicious.
▪ Saw police detective sergeant who was very understanding.
squad
▪ His father, David Ashworth, is wanted for questioning by murder squad detectives but yesterday he was still missing.
▪ David Ashworth was being brought back to Merseyside for interview after inquiries led murder squad detectives to Newcastle-on-Tyne.
▪ Bomb squad detectives were called when initial reports suggested animal rights campaigners were responsible.
▪ Murder squad detectives can hold and question the boys until 7am tomorrow.
▪ Outside London a murder squad detective might have one or two.
▪ Murder squad detectives, led by Detective Superintendent Stan Fletcher, sealed off the area while forensic tests were carried out.
▪ Murder squad detectives have warned that Mr Ashworth should not be approached.
▪ Murder squad detectives were questioning four men yesterday.
store
▪ If I were a store detective, I'd never have let me out of there without a body search.
▪ The highest award was £307,781 to a computer expert who injured his back helping a store detective stop a suspected shoplifter.
▪ It's because of racism. Store detectives will watch a Black person more than a white person.
▪ But one store detective isn't totally satisfied.
▪ Later that day, a search of the vehicle confirms the store detectives suspicions.
▪ Ian Walker, prosecuting, said a store detective spotted Melia going into a cubicle to try the jeans on.
story
▪ It was the feeling she had had as a child when she frightened herself with a detective story.
▪ Their approach is informal and Physics of Stellar Evolution and Cosmology reads like a scientific detective story.
▪ Elizabeth did not like detective stories, because some one was usually hanged at the end of them.
▪ That the blueprint detective story at its most basic is not a story.
▪ Your detective of the detective story, of course, went about seeking information.
▪ The 1930s were the era of the detective story, and it had reached its maximum popularity with Edgar Wallace.
▪ That may sound silly, but readers of blueprint detective stories want pure detection.
work
▪ In fact tying a pollution to its source can be a tricky piece of detective work.
▪ The arrival of numerical grades added new twists to detective work.
▪ Then we went up to my office to do some serious detective work.
▪ Finding the missing parts has been a lucky blending of good fortune and good detective work.
▪ Much slow and painstaking geological detective work is needed to make correlations such as these, but the results can be very valuable.
▪ Then he could do his own bit of private detective work.
▪ At the same time, the medical detective work threw up new uncertainties.
▪ It took no great detective work to work out where he was, however.
■ VERB
call
▪ The Classical Blueprint Let's start with the classical detective story, sometimes called the old-fashioned detective story.
hire
▪ She wondered if she should hire a private detective to find out who the girl was.
▪ He wondered if Virginia Stillman had hired another detective after he failed to get in touch with her.
▪ You hired detectives to find me?
▪ The police made a few routine inquiries, came up with nothing, and then suggested that she hire a private detective.
investigate
▪ You didn't mention that kind of thing to a detective investigating the death of a fellow club-member's wife.
▪ Now, detectives are investigating the possibility that a fourth woman may have been slain by the retired Army sergeant.
▪ Almost a hundred people telephoned offering help to detectives investigating the stabbing of Richard Miles.
▪ Homicide detectives are investigating the case.
▪ Two other people, a man and a woman, have already been arrested by detectives investigating the case.
▪ But detectives investigating her death believe she invented the story just to get the gun to take her own life.
play
▪ Dolezal decides to play detective in a one man undercover operation, wandering naively into deathtrap after deathtrap.
▪ The last star this hot played a pet detective.
▪ But there's nothing wrong with playing games to ease your concern, whether it's playing detective or playing rugby.
▪ He plays New York detective David Mitchell, a hero with 30 arrests to his credit but an aversion to killing.
▪ Wherever she had gone, wherever she was hiding, he would have to play detective and find her.
▪ A murder, and he wasn't even allowed to play detective.
▪ You'd think they'd be intrigued at a chance to play detectives.
▪ At the Tate Gallery, five to 13 year olds are encouraged to play detective to find the hidden details in paintings.
question
▪ His father, David Ashworth, is wanted for questioning by murder squad detectives but yesterday he was still missing.
tell
▪ In an interview, Christopher Gore told detectives what happened next.
▪ The boy later told detectives he meant only to scare her.
▪ Yesterday a Durham Police spokesman said the consultant in charge of Pringle had told detectives he is to undergo further surgery next month.
▪ She added that he had later asked her to tell detectives that he had been at home all Saturday night.
▪ I told detectives that he had a pilot's licence and could fly himself out of the country.
▪ Sad Joanna told detectives she dreaded the thought of eating and drinking at parties over the holiday period.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
Detectives made a TV appeal for anyone with any information about the crime to contact them.
▪ a private detective
▪ Anyone with information is being asked to call Detective Mike Place.
▪ I'm a detective with the Los Angeles Police Department. Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Form is one of the hidden assets of the detective story.
▪ Furthermore, the detectives are no longer in that basic symbol of police identity - the uniform.
▪ He was a very intelligent and perceptive young detective.
▪ Let me make sure I understand you, officer-mister detective.
▪ The customers say you'd have to be a detective to make sense of it.
▪ The lock snapped and the detective levered up the bottom section.
▪ Unless she and Mr Greenleaf decided to stay to see what the detective was going to do with him.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Detective

Detective \De*tect"ive\, a. Fitted for, or skilled in, detecting; employed in detecting crime or criminals; as, a detective officer.

Detective

Detective \De*tect"ive\, n. One who business it is so detect criminals or discover matters of secrecy.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
detective

1850, short for detective police, from detective (adj.), 1843; see detect + -ive.

Wiktionary
detective

n. (context law enforcement English) A police officer who looks for evidence as part of solving a crime; an investigator.

WordNet
detective
  1. n. a police officer who investigates crimes [syn: investigator, tec, police detective]

  2. an investigator engaged or employed in obtaining information not easily available to the public

Wikipedia
Detective

A detective is an investigator, usually a member of a law enforcement agency. Some are private persons, and may be known as private investigators, as "The Eye That Never Sleeps", the motto of the Pinkerton Detective Agency or shortened to simply "private eyes".

Informally, and primarily in fiction, a detective is any licensed or unlicensed person who solves crimes, including historical crimes, by examining and evaluating clues and personal records in order to uncover the identity and/or whereabouts of the criminal.

In some police departments, a detective position is achieved by passing a written test after a person completes the requirements for being a police officer. In many other police systems, detectives are college graduates who join directly from civilian life without first serving as uniformed officers. Some people argue that detectives do a completely different job and therefore require completely different training, qualifications, qualities and abilities than uniformed officers. The opposing argument is that without previous service as a uniformed patrol officer, a detective cannot have a great enough command of standard police procedures and problems and will find it difficult to work with uniformed colleagues.

Detective (novel)

Detective is a novel by Arthur Hailey. It was written in 1997 and it was the author's last book. Hailey depicts the work of the homicide department and its background and investigation methods.

Detective (1954 film)

'Detective ' is a 1954 Argentine film directed by Carlos Schlieper.

Detective (band)

Detective was an American/English rock band that toured and recorded in the late 1970s. Detective consisted of vocalist Michael Des Barres, guitarist Michael Monarch, bassist Bobby Pickett, ex- Yes organist Tony Kaye, and drummer Jon Hyde. The band released two albums, Detective (produced by the band, Andy Johns and Jimmy Robinson) and It Takes One to Know One in 1977, as well as Live From The Atlantic Studios, a promotional LP recorded only for radio broadcast, in 1978.

"They were good," recalled Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin, on whose Swan Song label Detective debuted. "That first album of theirs, it was really good. It should have been more popular, shouldn't it?"

In support of their second album, "It Takes One To Know One," Detective went on the road as the supporting act for Kiss. Kiss liked Detective so much that they actually considered recording one of their songs, "Ain't None Of Your Business", with Peter Criss on lead vocals. Demos exist of the Kiss version, but the song never made it onto a Kiss album or was ever played live.

Detective did go into the studio in 1978 with producer, Tom Dowd, to record their third album. While their first two albums were on Led Zeppelin's Swan Song label, Atlantic Records took over the band for their third release. Atlantic wanted a hit single from the band. Dowd brought in a song from a then unknown singer-songwriter named John Cougar, " I Need a Lover". According to Monarch, they really didn't want to record it, but they did. It remains unreleased to this day along with a couple of other original songs. Monarch went on to say that the members of Detective were moving in different directions and the group decided to disband.

Michael Des Barres from the band performed songs on the fourth episode of the first season of the sitcom WKRP in Cincinnati as part of the fictional hoodlum rock group "Scum of the Earth". Michael Des Barres and two other actors played the part of the band during most of the TV show, but the band Detective performed on the end of the show segment.

Detective (disambiguation)

A detective is a professional investigator.

Detective(s) or The Detective(s) may also refer to:

Détective (1985 film)

Détective is a 1985 French crime film directed by Jean-Luc Godard. It was entered into the 1985 Cannes Film Festival.

Detective (2007 film)

Detective is a 2007 Malayalam suspense thriller film directed by Jeethu Joseph. The movie features Suresh Gopi in a dual role with Sindhu Menon in the lead role. The film received positive reviews and it was a hit at the box office.

Viewers originally did not show much interest in the film but its popularity grew after it was screened on television.

It was dubbed into Hindi as Mera Mission Mera Kartavya.

Detective (2016 film)

Detective is an upcoming 2016 Bangladeshi 3D computer animated fantasy- Suspense film 3D Creations & Direction Tapan Ahmed produced by Jaaz Multimedia. The film is based on Rabindranath Tagore's short story with the same name. Detective is the first animated film produced by Jaaz Multimedia and is the most expensive animated film to be produced in Bangladesh. Featuring the voices of Arifin Shuvoo and Ali Raz, the film explores the life of a police detective.

Detective (1958 film)

Detective is a 1958 Bollywood film starring Pradeep Kumar and Mala Sinha. It is one of the first fims directed by Shakti Samanta which failed to become a success. Produced & Music by Mukul Roy

Usage examples of "detective".

It contained two live individuals: Amanuensis and Detective Ratt - the former in control of the latter.

Seems like a waste of his time to come looking for Beeker when he could hire a whole team of detectives to do the job for him.

She pushed her way past Bender, searching the faces around her until she found Kevin in the kitchen, chatting with two other detectives.

Gloria Garton lowered her bepurpled lids and cast a queenly stare of suspicion on the young detective.

I had a letter from that Detective Inspector Brudge in Worcester just before I left.

The next morning Bucca phoned his JTTF detective contact and brought a copy of the file down to 26 Federal Plaza.

Prosecutors, witnesses, officials, policemen, detectives, undetected, pressmen, barristers, loafers, clerks, cadgers, jurymen.

Then a vice detective in Portsmouth thought he might recognize the circulated photograph, despite the damage and discoloration.

The detective called downtown and had all transmissions about the Conjurer case changed to the citywide special-ops frequency.

Some one more capable than Detectives Kurman and Cleer would be needed when that climax came.

Detective Cleer came to his feet, snatching up a panama hat that he had dropped.

The three members of the Yellow Band knew that Detectives Kurman and Cleer were apprentices at the art of investigating crime.

More policemen were standing with Police Detective Cliffy and Sergeant Robinson.

Almost at the same moment, the door opened, letting in Detective Cliffy and his playmate Robinson.

His friend wanted to go too, but the policeman made it clear that Detective Cliffy would be talking to one person at a time.