Gumshoe

noun, verb, slang

noun, verb, slang ·2 syllables ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A sneaker or rubber overshoe.
  2. 2
    a waterproof overshoe that protects shoes from water or snow wordnet
  3. 3
    A detective. Canada, US, slang

    ""Who's this gumshoe guy from the bush league tailin' us?""

  4. 4
    someone who is a detective wordnet
Verb
  1. 1
    To act as a detective. slang

    "The next thing they did was to send a man sent down there from Baltimore and he spent a good deal of time gumshoeing around in that county trying to get another individual put in as secretary-treasurer."

Synonyms

All synonyms
dickdickarcticarcticbeaglebluecoat

Example

More examples

""Who's this gumshoe guy from the bush league tailin' us?""

Etymology

From gum + shoe.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.