Metal-detect
verb ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 To use a metal detector to find metal objects on the surface or buried underground. ambitransitive
"Flowerdew has three known cemeteries, containing Woodland Indians, 1620s colonists and enslaved individuals from about 1760. All three are in the area metal-detected last March. […] At the Little Bighorn Battlefield, in Montana, volunteers have used their metal-detecting machines to pinpoint artifacts, whose position rewrote the story of Custer’s Last Stand."
- 2 To make (someone) pass through a metal detector to detect concealed metal objects. transitive
"“They’re testing you,” she said to her son, James, after she was finally cleared, metal-detected and led upstairs to the visiting room, a spare, linoleum-floored space inside the hospital’s high-security building."
Example
More examples"Flowerdew has three known cemeteries, containing Woodland Indians, 1620s colonists and enslaved individuals from about 1760. All three are in the area metal-detected last March. […] At the Little Bighorn Battlefield, in Montana, volunteers have used their metal-detecting machines to pinpoint artifacts, whose position rewrote the story of Custer’s Last Stand."
Etymology
Back-formation from metal detector.
More for "metal-detect"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.