Sleuth

Noun

 * 1)  An animal’s trail or track.
 * 2)  A sleuth-hound; a bloodhound.
 * 3) A detective.
 * 4) * 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?

Synonyms

 * detective

Verb

 * 1)  To act as a detective; to try to discover who committed a crime.
 * 2) * 1922, Agatha Christie, The Secret Adversary
 * We must discover where he lives, what he does — sleuth him, in fact!

Synonyms

 * shadow

Noun

 * 1)  Slowness; laziness, sloth.
 * 2)  A collective term for a group of bears.
 * 3) * 1961, Noel Perrin, A Passport Secretly Green, p.89
 * 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…
 * 1) * 1995, Bobbie Ann Mason, The Girl Sleuth, p.13
 * If these dainty adventurers weren’t being chased by a sleuth of bears or bogeys, they were being captured by Gypsies or thieves.
 * 1) * 2007, Elinor De Wire, The Lightkeepers’ Menagerie: Stories of Animals at Lighthouses, p.200
 * 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.

Synonyms

 * idleness, inertia, laziness, lethargy, sloth, slothfulness
 * sloth

Verbs for Sleuth
employ—; engage—; tip off (colloq.)—; — analyzes; —apprehends; —beguiles; — cloaks—; cross-examines—; —deduces; — detects; —discloses; —disguises ; —divulges ; dodges; —exposes; —fathoms; —ferrets out; —grills; —interrogates; —investigates; —mystifies; —outwits;  —overhauls;  — peers; —pries into; —probes; —prowls; — queries; —questions; —ransacks; —reveals; —scents; —scrutinizes;  —shadows;  — threshes out; —traces; —tracks down; — trails; —uncovers; —unearths; —unmasks; —veils.

Adverbs for Sleuth
imperceptibly;  appreciably; greasily; languidly; violently; tiously.

Thesaurus
Bow Street runner, FBI, FBI agent, Federal, G-man, Secret Service, Sherlock, Sherlock Holmes, T-man, detective, dick, eye, fed, gumshoe, hawkshaw, hotel detective, house detective, house dick, inquiry agent, investigator, narc, operative, plainclothesman, police detective, private detective, private eye, private investigator, revenuer, shamus, snoop, store detective, tec, treasury agent

Etymology 1
From slóð: (Norwegian slo:).

Etymology 2
From slæwþ:, corresponding to slow: + -th:.

Noun

 * Dutch:, speurneus, , detectief
 * Finnish: ,


 * Russian: сыщик
 * Swedish:, snok

Verb

 * Dutch: naspeuren,


 * Swedish: spana, skugga

Anagrams

 * hustle