sleuth

Etymology

Definitions

1. 1

   A detective.

   • 1908, Edith Van Dyne (Frank L. Baum), Aunt Jane’s Nieces at Millville Do ye want me to become a sleuth, or engage detectives to track the objects of your erroneous philanthropy?
   • “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.
2. 2

   A sleuthhound

   A sleuthhound; a bloodhound.

3. 3

   An animal’s trail or track.

4. ›+ 3 more definitionsshow fewer

   1. 4

      To act as a detective

      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!
   2. 5

      Slowness

      Slowness; laziness, sloth.

   3. 6

      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…
      • If these dainty adventurers weren’t being chased by a sleuth of bears or bogeys, they were being captured by Gypsies or thieves.
      • From the darkness came the howls of routs of wolves and bands of coyotes, the rumbling growls of a sleuth of bears or the bugles of a gang of elk.

The neighborhood

• neighborsloth