Detect
adj, verb, slang ·2 syllables ·Moderate ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 To discover or find by careful search, examination, or probing.
"Cantharidin, although readily decomposed by chemical agents, is so permanent in the body that it has been detected in the corpse of a cat eighty-four days after death."
- 2 To work or solve cases as a detective. informal, intransitive
"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."
- 3 discover or determine the existence, presence, or fact of by perception with the eyes wordnet
- 1 Detected. not-comparable, obsolete
Example
More examples"The computer can detect 200 types of error."
Etymology
From Latin detectus, perfect passive participle of detegere (“to uncover or disclose”), from de- + tegere (“to cover”); see tegument, tile, thatch.
Back-formation from detective.
Related phrases
More for "detect"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.