- a person, especially a police officer, whose job is to investigate crimes and catch criminals
- a police/homicide/undercover detective
- Several objects were taken away by detectives from the anti-terrorist squad.
- Detective Inspector (Roger) Brown
- a detective constable/sergeant/superintendent
Extra ExamplesTopics Jobsa2, Law and justicea2, Crime and punishmenta2- Sherlock Holmes was Conan Doyle's fictional detective.
- Thomson was the lead detective in the Ramsay case.
- detectives investigating the case
- A team of around 30 detectives and uniformed officers have been working on the case.
- He was arrested in Spain by Scotland Yard detectives.
- Detective Sergeant John Nelson
Oxford Collocations Dictionaryadjective- private
- undercover
- store
- …
- hire
- investigate something
- agency
- work
- fiction
- …
- a person employed by somebody to find out information about somebody/something see also private detectiveOxford Collocations Dictionaryadjective
- private
- undercover
- store
- …
- hire
- investigate something
- agency
- work
- fiction
- …
Word Originmid 19th cent.: from detect. The noun was originally short for detective policeman, from an adjectival use of the word in the sense ‘serving to detect’.
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detective