detective
part of speech
noun (a detective, detectives); adjective (detective story, detective work)
meaning for a pupil
1) A detective is a police officer or private worker whose job is to find out who did a crime and how. tree →
2) Anyone who looks closely at clues to solve a puzzle or mystery. tree →
3) As an adjective: about solving crimes, as in «detective story» or «detective work». tree →
sense in the lessons
Common in stories, TV shows and puzzle games. Phrases: «private detective», «detective story», «play detective», «do some detective work». In school, «be a maths detective» means look for clues in a problem to find the answer.
examples
- The detective found a muddy footprint by the window. tree →
- Sherlock Holmes is a famous detective in stories. tree →
- My sister loves reading detective books. tree →
- Let's be maths detectives and find the missing number. tree →
- A private detective was hired to find the lost dog. tree →
- It took some detective work to find where my sock went. tree →
- The detective asked everyone where they had been. tree →
note
Countable: a detective, two detectives. Informal shortenings: «detective» is sometimes «D.I.» (UK, detective inspector) or «a PI» (private investigator, US). Related: detect (verb), detection. A detective is not always a police officer — some are private.
In the corpora
- Koalas have fingerprints so like ours that they could confuse a detective.
- A week later only one is properly rusty, and a detective knows which before looking.
- A good reader is a detective: find the clues, then say what they show.
- A detective does not need a magnifying glass, only careful eyes.
- Good detectives do it the other way round.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «detective» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.