detect
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English
Pronunciation
Etymology 1
From Latin detectus, perfect passive participle of detegere (“to uncover or disclose”), from de- + tegere (“to cover”); see tegument, tile, thatch.
Verb
detect (third-person singular simple present detects, present participle detecting, simple past and past participle detected)
- To discover or find by careful search, examination, or probing.
- 1960 June, “Talking of Trains: New B.R. research laboratory”, in Trains Illustrated, page 329:
- Diesel maintenance schedules are benefiting from work done on the magnificent Hilger & Watts electronic spectrograph for oil analysis, which detects minute quantities of metals in samples of used lubricating oil; [...].
Translations
to detect — see notice
to discover or find by careful search, examination, or probing
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Derived terms
Related terms
Descendants
- → Catalan: detectar
- → French: détecter
- → Dutch: detecteren
- → Portuguese: detectar, detetar (Portugal)
- → Romanian: detecta
- → Spanish: detectar
See also
Adjective
detect (not comparable)
- (obsolete) Detected.
Etymology 2
Back-formation from detective.
Verb
detect (third-person singular simple present detects, present participle detecting, simple past and past participle detected)
- (intransitive, informal) To work or solve cases as a detective.
- 1926, Dorothy L. Sayers, Clouds of Witness (Lord Peter Wimsey; 2), T. Fisher Unwin, →ISBN, page 105:
- Parker would in all likelihood have done so; he was paid to detect and to do nothing else, and neither his natural gifts nor his education (at Barrow-in-Furness Grammar School) prompted him to stray into side-tracks at the beck of an ill-regulated imagination.
- 1978, Leslie Lonsdale-Cooper, Michael Turner, transl., Tintin in America (The Adventures of Tintin), Egmont, published 2012, →ISBN, page 45:
- Let me introduce myself: Mike MacAdam, hotel detective. / H-how d-’you do? / Mind if I begin detecting?
- 1991, Hillary Waugh, Hillary Waugh's Guide to Mysteries & Mystery Writing Novel, Writer's Digest Books, →ISBN, page 11:
- In a detective story, a detective detects; an active effort is made to determine who committed a given crime, and detecting the identity of a criminal could not be done until there were detectives.
- 2019 May 9, Ben Kenigsberg, “'Pokémon Detective Pikachu' Review: A Cat and (Electric) Mouse Game”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 2022-12-17:
- That aversion is tested when he teams up with Pikachu (voiced by Ryan Reynolds), his father's detecting partner, after the father appears to have been killed in an accident.
References
- “detect”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
- “detect”, in The Century Dictionary , New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
- “detect”, in OED Online
, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000. - “detect”, in OED Online , Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.
