gumshoe
Slang. a detective.
a shoe made of gum elastic or India rubber; rubber overshoe.
Slang.
to work as a detective.
to go softly, as if wearing rubber shoes; move or act snoopily or stealthily.
Origin of gumshoe
1Words Nearby gumshoe
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024
How to use gumshoe in a sentence
Montalbán endowed his Catalan gumshoe with an equally impressive set of quirks that are aired and explored in each book.
The Foodie Detective: The Pepe Carvalho Novels by Manuel Vázquez Montalbán | Malcolm Forbes | October 3, 2012 | THE DAILY BEASTIn some ways, The Hypnotist hews closer to the American gumshoe tradition.
The book on which I was doing all the gumshoe reporting, Godtalk, is now a time capsule.
Not some cheesy gumshoe operation with frosted-glass windows and the lingering stench of stale cigar smoke.
Under McCullogh's regime this open-shop gumshoe artist had free access to the jail with instructions to go as far as he liked.
The Everett massacre | Walker C. Smith
I'm sure the gumshoe when it comes to pipin' a man off so's I got his photograph in my eye.
Under Handicap | Jackson GregoryA gumshoe outlasts a hobnailed sole and a rubber tube full of air is better than a steel tire.
Creative Chemistry | Edwin E. SlossonAnd consider the appropriateness of the figures of speech, as gumshoe would say.
Deering of Deal | Latta GriswoldOne for the gumshoe, said Tony blithely, as they turned onto the campus.
Deering of Deal | Latta Griswold
British Dictionary definitions for gumshoe
/ (ˈɡʌmˌʃuː) /
a waterproof overshoe
US and Canadian a rubber-soled shoe
US and Canadian slang a detective or one who moves about stealthily
US and Canadian slang a stealthy action or movement
(intr) US and Canadian slang to act stealthily
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
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