shamus
Americannoun
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a detective.
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a police officer.
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of shamus
1925–30; of obscure origin, though popularly derived from either Yiddish shames shammes or the Irish male given name Séamas
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The heroes are typically amateur or private detectives, possibly quirky, often women, sometimes a couple; they aren’t likely to suffer the afflictions common to the hard-boiled shamus — depression, rage, alcoholism, untreated trauma.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 3, 2022
Dashiell Hammett’s detective Sam Spade did his shamus business in the fogs of San Francisco, but Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe made L.A. the noir capital.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 18, 2022
With a cheap business card and an equally cheap jacket and tie, he smilingly ambles it into the shamus role, knocking on doors and sniffing out leads among all the yammer and serviceable visuals.
From New York Times ● Jan. 17, 2018
For the audience, he is equally shamus and shaman, chasing down clues and trying to exorcise demons that plague the body politic.
From New York Times ● Dec. 14, 2017
I've got friends in PIB—real friends, not the shamus crowd you're acquainted with that'll take you for your last nickel and then leave you to starve.
From Bear Trap by Nourse, Alan Edward
Philip Marlowe at quarterback, Easy Rawlins at strong safety, and a fierce defensive line of framed shamuses.
From New York Times ● Jul. 17, 2020
Lionel is one of a handful of shamuses — Bobby Cannavale, Ethan Suplee and Dallas Roberts play the others — known as Minna’s men.
From New York Times ● Oct. 31, 2019
Since his death, several of the shamuses in his earlier stories have been renamed Philip Marlowe, a nod to the primacy and enduring power of that character.
From New York Times ● Dec. 21, 2014
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
