Detective

How to spell detective

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce detective

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does detective mean?

1. nounA police officer or private investigator whose work is to examine evidence and solve crimes.
2. adjectiveRelating to the investigation of crime or the uncovering of hidden information.

Detective in a sentence

• noun

  The detective interviewed three witnesses before charging the suspect.

• adjective

  The new recruit was assigned to detective duties within the fraud unit.

• noun

  She hired a private detective to trace her missing brother.

• adjective

  He reads a detective novel on the train every morning.

Where does detective come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word traces back to the Latin verb detegere, meaning 'to uncover' or 'to expose', built from the prefix de- (here reversing the action, so 'un-') and tegere, 'to cover'. English already had the verb 'detect' from this root by the late 1400s, in the sense of revealing or laying bare something hidden. The noun 'detective' is much younger: it emerged in English around the 1840s, originally as a shortening of 'detective police' or 'detective constable', a new kind of officer created to investigate crime in plain clothes. The same tegere root sits quietly inside 'protect' (to cover in front of) and 'integument' (a covering layer), which is a useful reminder that the middle of the word is spelled 'tect' and not 'teck'. Because the everyday sound is a clean 'teck', that hidden Latin 'tect' spelling is the main thing to keep in mind.

How the word is built

• de- (un-, reverse)
• tect (cover, from Latin tegere 'to cover')
• -ive (forming an agent noun or adjective)