sleuth

1. 1.

   a detective who follows a trail

   Synonymssleuthhound

   Broaderdetective

1. 1.

   watch, observe, or inquire secretly

   Synonymsspystagsnoop

   Broadermonitor

Other forms of sleuth

plural

sleuths·

past tense

sleuthed·

present participle

sleuthing·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about sleuth

What does sleuth mean?

sleuth means "a detective who follows a trail". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in sleuth?

sleuth has 1 syllable: sleuth. In IPA it is /ˈsluθ/.

What is another word for sleuth?

Close synonyms include sleuthhound, spy, stag, snoop. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is sleuth a common word?

sleuth is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.