Sleuthhound
noun, slang ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
- 1 A working dog who tracks or pursues e.g. a wanted criminal; a bloodhound formerly used in Scotland.
"Sometimes he pursued the wily burn trout with relentless ferocity and the silent intentness of a sleuthhound. Often, however, he would pause and with his finger indicate some favourite stone to Winsome."
- 2 a breed of large powerful hound of European origin having very acute smell and used in tracking wordnet
- 3 A detective; a sleuth. informal
"And straightway the minions of the law led forth from their donjon keep one whom the sleuthhounds of justice had apprehended in consequence of information received."
- 4 a detective who follows a trail wordnet
Example
More examples"Sometimes he pursued the wily burn trout with relentless ferocity and the silent intentness of a sleuthhound. Often, however, he would pause and with his finger indicate some favourite stone to Winsome."
Etymology
From Middle English sluth hunde (and earlier as slodogge), from Old Norse slóð (“track”) + hound.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.