private detective
a detective who is not a member of an official force but is employed by private parties.
Origin of private detective
1- Also called private investigator.
Words Nearby private detective
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024
How to use private detective in a sentence
Rong and the private detective met again, but the project in California fizzled out.
Operation Fox Hunt: How China Exports Repression Using a Network of Spies Hidden in Plain Sight | by Sebastian Rotella and Kirsten Berg | July 22, 2021 | ProPublicaIn San Dieguito, union officials hired a private detective to tail a school board member.
Morning Report: Race and Reopening Bring Tension to Local Schools | Voice of San Diego | July 14, 2021 | Voice of San DiegoIn San Dieguito, union officials hired a private detective to follow a school board member and another was forced out.
Even before he finished law school, he had founded a private detective agency and became an expert in the relatively new field of polygraphy, or lie-detector testing, a skill that would help trigger his meteoric rise.
F. Lee Bailey, defense lawyer for the famous and infamous, dies at 87 | Paul W. Valentine | June 3, 2021 | Washington PostEnter Raymond Schindler, a private detective who, like the mob that rushed the station, wielded a rope of his own.
A child’s murder, a lynch mob and the early days of the NAACP | Jerald Walker | March 19, 2021 | Washington Post
Back in 2009, Crone told Parliament that the phone-hacking allegations concerned only one rogue reporter and a private detective.
Former Murdoch Lawyer Arrested in Phone-Hacking Scandal | Peter Jukes | August 30, 2012 | THE DAILY BEASTBut it did not take a private detective or a biographer like Walter Isaacson to uncover these transgressions.
Frustrated by the Portuguese authorities, they hired their own private detective to follow up on countless sightings and leads.
Scotland Yard Says Madeleine McCann May Still Be Alive | Barbie Latza Nadeau | April 26, 2012 | THE DAILY BEASTThe very next morning,” Lorsch recalled, “I hired a private detective and found the bankruptcy.
Law enforcement was something of a family business: Two uncles were police officers and his grandfather was a private detective.
So did my versatile friend, joyously confident in his powers, start on his glorious career as a private detective.
The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol | William J. LockeHe became a successful corporation lawyer and I starved for a while and then I became a private detective.
Allen was acting in two capacities at this time—that of lawyer and that of private detective.
The Outdoor Girls in the Saddle | Laura Lee HopeIn return the officials of the concern said they would put a private detective on the case, and this was done.
The Rover Boys on the Farm | Arthur M. Winfield (AKA Edward Stratemeyer)"Thank you;" he bowed over her hand, then turned to the private detective.
The Diamond Coterie | Lawrence L. Lynch
British Dictionary definitions for private detective
an individual privately employed to investigate a crime, keep watch on a suspected person, or make other inquiries: Also called: private investigator
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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