Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Detective |
DetectiveNoun1. A police officer who investigates crimes. 2. An investigator engaged or employed in obtaining information not easily available to the public. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "detective" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1862. (references) |
| Domain | Definition |
Dream Interpretation | To dream of a detective keeping in your wake when you are innocent of charges preferred, denotes that fortune and honor are drawing nearer to you each day; but if you feel yourself guilty, you are likely to find your reputation at stake, and friends will turn from you. For a young woman, this is not a fortunate dream. Source: Ten Thousand Dreams Interpreted .... |
Occupations | Carries out investigations to prevent crimes or solve criminal cases: Investigates known or suspected criminals or facts of particular case to detect planned criminal activity or clues. Frequents known haunts of criminals and becomes familiar with criminals to determine criminals' habits, associates, characteristics, aliases, and other personal information. Records and reports such information to commanding officer. Investigates crimes and questions witnesses. Examines scene of crime to obtain clues and gather evidence. Investigates suspected persons and reports progress of investigation. Arrests or assists in arrest of criminals or suspects. Prepares assigned cases for court, according to formalized procedures. Testifies before court and grand jury. May be designated according to nature of crime investigated as Detective, Automobile Section (government ser.); Detective, Homicide Squad (government ser.); according to rank as Detective Sergeant (government ser.) II; or according to administrative division to which assigned as Detective, Precinct (government ser.); Detective, Youth Bureau (government ser.). (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
A detective is an officer of the police that performs criminal or administrative investigations, or a private person licensed to investigate information not readily available in public records (also called private eye).
Detectives and their work
Becoming a detective
In most American police departments, a candidate for detective must have served as a uniformed officer for a period of one to five years before becoming qualified for the position.
Detectives obtain their position by competitive examination, covering such subjects as:
Private detectives are licensed by the state in which they live after passing a competitive examination and a criminal background check. Some states, such as Maryland, require a period of classroom training as well.
- Principles, practices, and procedures of investigations
- Principles, practices, and procedures of interviewing and interrogation
- Local criminal law and procedures
- Applicable law governing arrests, search and seizures, warrants, and evidence
- Police department records and reports
- Principles, practices and objectives of courtroom testimony
- Police department methods and procedures
Organization of detectives
The detective bureau in most police departments is organized into several squads, each of which specializes in a type of investigation such as:
- Homicide
- Stolen autos
- Fraud
- Burglary
- Narcotics
- Forgery
- Intelligence on criminal activity
- Sexual crimes
- Other investigations
Techniques of detectives
Street work
Detectives have a wide variety of techniques available in conducting investigations. However, the majority of cases are solved by interrogation of suspects and witnesses, which takes time. In a policeman’s career as a uniformed officer and as a detective, a detective develops an intuitive sense of the plausibility of suspect and witness accounts. This intuition may fail at times, but usually is reliable.
Besides interrogations, detectives may rely on a network of informants he or she has cultivated over the years. Informants often have connections with persons a detective would not be able to approach formally.
In criminal investigations, once a detective has a suspect or suspects in mind, the next step is to produce evidence that will stand up in a court of law. The best way is to obtain a confession from the suspect, usually in exchange for a plea bargain for a lesser sentence. A detective may lie or otherwise mislead and may psychologically pressure a suspect into confessing, though in the United States a suspect may invoke his or her Miranda rights.
Forensic evidence
Physical forensic evidence in an investigation may provide leads to closing a case.
Examples of physical evidence can be, but are not limited to:
Many major police departments in a city, county, or state, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, maintain their own forensic laboratories.
- Fingerprinting of objects persons have touched
- DNA analysis
- Footprints or tire tracks
- Chemical testing for the presence of narcotics or expended gun propellant
- The exact position of objects at the scene of an investigation
Records investigation
Detectives may use public and private records to provide background information on a subject. These include:
- Fingerprint records. In the United States, the FBI maintains records of people who have committed felonies and some misdemeanors, all persons who have applied for a Federal security clearance, and all persons who have served in the U.S. armed forces
- Records of criminal arrests and convictions
- Photographs or mug shots, of persons arrested
- Motor vehicle records
- Credit card records and bank statements
- Hotel registration cards
- Credit reports
Court testimony
Unless a plea bargain forestalls the need for a trial, a detective must testify in court about his investigation. He or she must seem reliable and credible to a jury, and must not give the impression of personal vindictiveness or cruelty. A detective's background often comes into question in courtroom testimony. A famous example came in the murder trial of O. J. Simpson, when Detective Mark Fuhrman of the Los Angeles Police Department testified for the prosecution. Attorney F. Lee Bailey first asked Furhman if he had ever used the "n-word" (see Nigger). Furhman denied this. In court, Bailey produced taped interviews with Furhman using this offensive word.
Famous detectives
Fictional detectives
The detective story has been a popular genre in books, radio, television, and movies since the early 19th century.
Famous fictional detectives include:
See Detective fiction and Crime fiction for more details.
- Sherlock Holmes, created by Arthur Conan Doyle
- Auguste Dupin, created by Edgar Allan Poe
- Sam Spade, created by Dashiell Hammett and portrayed in film by Humphrey Bogart
See also:
- CID
- Private investigator
- Eugène François Vidocq
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Detective."
Synonyms: DetectiveSynonyms: investigator (n), police detective (n), tec (n). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Information | Informer, eavesdropper, delator, detective; sleuth; mouchard, spy, newsmonger; messenger; amicus curiae. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | I'm Detective Carter (Rush Hour; writing credit: Jim Kouf) Ace Ventura, Pet Detective. And you must be the Monopoly guy (Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls; writing credit: Steve Oedekerk) Well, Hank was a great detective alright (Touch of Evil; writing credit: Whit Masterson; Orson Welles) It helps if you dress like a detective. Detective dress kinda square (Repo Man; writing credit: Alex Cox) That's a terrible name for a detective. Sherlock Holmes (Shanghai Knights; writing credit: Alfred Gough; Miles Millar) | |
Movie/TV Titles | Il Gatto di Brooklyn aspirante detective (1973) Detective Harry Hard (1973) Un Detective (1969) The Secret Files of Detective 'X' (1968) El Detective genial (1965) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title | ||
Books | |||
Periodicals |
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Theater & Movies | |||
Music |
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High Tech |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
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| Thumbnail | Description & Credit | Thumbnail | Description & Credit |
 | The detective rose; he held the crepe de chine in his hand as though he were about to put it up for auction. Credit: Library of Congress. |  | Cover for "The illustrated detective magazine" for February 1930, showing bust portrait of woman holding her head, screaming] / WR. Credit: Library of Congress. |
 | Retired FDNY captain John Vigiano at Ground Zero. He made daily visits to the World Trade Center looking for his two sons who perished in the attacks: Detective Joseph Vigiano and John Vigiano, from Ladder 132 / Brigitte Stelzer, 9-11-01. Credit: Library of Congress. | ||
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Health | When they do, some scientists think that this detective story will turn out to have a number of culprits. (references) | |
The apoE4 gene came to light through long, patient detective work topped off by the serendipity that sometimes occurs in science. (references) | ||
Business | There are no special technical standards to which imported alarm and other detective apparatus must conform by law. U.S. standards are generally accepted in Taiwan. (references) | |
Human Rights | Bangladesh | In 1998 the deputy commissioner of the Dhaka police detective branch publicly defended the use of physical coercion against suspects, saying that the practice was necessary in order to obtain information. (references) |
Bangladesh | Akbar stated that the detective branch repeatedly subjected him to electric shock, poured hot water mixed with powdered chilies (cayenne pepper) into his nose, and threatened to kill him if he did not confess. (references) | |
India | On February 2, the chief of the detective department submitted a report stating that the reported rape was "baseless and far from the truth"; however, the victim had become pregnant, reportedly as a result of the attack. (references) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| "Detective" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 99.60% of the time. "Detective" is used about 1,756 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (singular) | 99.6% | 1,749 | 4,813 |
| Noun (proper) | 0.4% | 7 | 133,076 |
| Total | 100.00% | 1,756 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expressions using "detective": detective agency ♦ detective force ♦ detective inspector ♦ detective novel ♦ detective service ♦ detective story ♦ detective superintendent ♦ detective work ♦ do detective work ♦ hotel detective ♦ house detective ♦ police detective ♦ private detective ♦ store detective. Additional references. | |
| Hyphenated Usage | |
Beginning with "detective": detective-chief, Detective-constable, detective-constables, Detective-inspector, detective-inspectors, Detective-sergeant, detective-sergeants, detective-story, detective-story-like, detective-superintendent, detective-work. | |
Ending with "detective": ex-detective, police-detective. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day | Expression | Frequency per Day |
cyber detective | 2,586 | net detective serial number | 62 |
net detective | 1,584 | heart detective | 60 |
detective | 1,262 | cover detective magazine | 59 |
online detective | 408 | free detective software | 58 |
private detective | 355 | download net detective for free | 53 |
web detective | 255 | great mouse detective | 50 |
detective conan | 249 | detective story | 47 |
on line detective | 181 | the singing detective | 47 |
detective software | 158 | dvd detective | 46 |
detective agency | 155 | ace ventura pet detective | 44 |
desktop detective | 146 | clipart detective | 43 |
internet detective | 111 | detective game online | 43 |
fake detective | 101 | 8.0 detective net serial | 40 |
free net detective | 96 | detective msn | 40 |
net detective serial | 96 | cyber detective serial | 38 |
net detective 8.0 | 93 | port detective | 38 |
detective game | 91 | online detective 3.0 | 37 |
driver detective | 71 | 8 detective net serial | 36 |
detective magazine | 68 | detective picture | 32 |
genealogy detective | 66 | net detective download | 32 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Language | Translations for "detective"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Albanian | detektiv (bloodhound, Dick, gumshoe, plant, sleuth), agjent policie. (various references) | |
Arabic | كشفى, رجل المباحث (sleuth), بوليس سرى. (various references) | |
Bulgarian | разузнавателен (reconnaissance), детективски (mystery), детектив (beagle, eye, gumshoe, investigator, operative, shadow, tec, tracker, trap). (various references) | |
Chinese | 探员, 暗探 (secret agent), 偵探 . (various references) | |
Czech | detektiv (Dick, sleuth). (various references) | |
Danish | detektiv. (various references) | |
Dutch | rechercheur, detective. (various references) | |
Esperanto | detektivo. (various references) | |
Finnish | salapoliisi. (various references) | |
French | détective (Det), policier en civil, limier (deerhound), inspecteur. (various references) | |
Frisian | detektive. (various references) | |
German | Detektiv (spotter). (various references) | |
Greek | ντεντέκτιβ, ντεντεκτίβ, ντετέκτιβ (sleuth). (various references) | |
Hebrew | בלשי, בלש (ferret, knark). (various references) | |
Hungarian | detektív (sleuth), nyomozó (investigator). (various references) | |
Indonesian | detektif, mata-mata (emissary, spy). (various references) | |
Italian | poliziotto investigativo, poliziesco (police), investigatore privato (private eye), investigatore (inquirer, investigator), investigativo (investigative, investigatory), giallo (yellow). (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | 隠密 (privacy, secrecy, spy), 岡引 (plain-clothesman), 岡っ引き (secret policeman), て拳道 (copula, Don't you agree?, event, guess, has become possible, hope, huge, huge breasts, I fear, I hope, I think, I thought you'd say that!, in a big way, is now possible, it seems, may, polite copula in Japanese, probably, surely, Tae Kwon Do, therefore, think, to be, will), 刑事 (criminal case). (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | おかひき (plain-clothesman), おかっぴき (plain-clothesman, secret policeman), おんみつ (privacy, secrecy, spy), でか , けいじ (apocalypse, auspicious event, bulletin, clocking, copula, criminal case, defer to another as if an older brother, notice, revelation, timing). (various references) | |
Korean | 담정. (various references) | |
Manx | cronneyder (observer, spectator, viewer). (various references) | |
Norwegian | detektiv. (various references) | |
Pig Latin | etectiveday.(various references) | |
Portuguese | detetive (bloodhound, bustle, dick, ferret, plainclothes man). (various references) | |
Romanian | detectiv (Dick, ferret, G-man, tec), agent de poliţie (beagle, Dick, nark, nose, policeman, shadow, slop, trap). (various references) | |
Russian | сыскной, сыщик (bloodhound, ferret, nark, plain-clothes man, plainclothesman, plant, sleuth, snoop, trap), детективный (cops-and-robbers), детектив детективный. (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | detektivski, detektiv (dick, sleuth). (various references) | |
Spanish | detective (private eye, sleuth, sleuthhound). (various references) | |
Swedish | detektiv (sleuth). (various references) | |
Thai | นับสืบ. (various references) | |
Turkish | detektif (sleuth), dedektif gibi, dedektif (bloodhound, Dick, ferret, investigator, spotter), polisiye (cloak-and-dagger), polis hafiyesi, hafiye (ferret, sleuth, snoop, split, spy). (various references) | |
Turkmen | sьlзhi. (various references) | |
Ukrainian | розшукний, детективний, детектив (nark, sleuth). (various references) | |
Vietnamese | thám tử trinh thám, để tìm ra (heuristic), để phát hiện ra; trinh thám, để khám phá ra, để dò ra. (various references) | |
Welsh | cuddswyddog. (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "detective": detectivelike, detectives. (additional references) | |
| |
"Detective" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: dectective, Dedective, deective, dejective, dfetective. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "detective" (pronounced dute"ktiv) |
| 7 | -u t e" k t i v | protective. |
| 5 | -e" k t i v | affective, collective, connective, corrective, defective, directive, effective, elective, ineffective, infective, introspective, invective, irrespective, objective, perspective, projective, prospective, reflective, respective, retrospective, selective, subjective. |
| 4 | -k t i v | active, addictive, adjective, attractive, conductive, constructive, counterproductive, destructive, distinctive, hyperactive, inactive, injunctive, instinctive, instructive, interactive, nonproductive, obstructive, octave, overactive, photoconductive, predictive, proactive, productive, radioactive, reactive, reconstructive, refractive, reproductive, restrictive, retroactive, seductive, superconductive, unattractive, unproductive, vindictive. |
| 3 | -t i v | accommodative, abortive, accumulative, accusative, acquisitive, adaptive, additive, administrative, adoptive, affirmative, alliterative, alternative, anticompetitive, appointive, appreciative, argumentative, assaultive, assertive, attentive, authoritative, automotive, captive, causative, cognitive, collaborative, combative, commemorative, communicative, comparative, competitive, congestive, consecutive, conservative, consultative, contemplative, contraceptive, cooperative, corruptive, creative, cumulative, curative, deceptive, decorative, definitive, degenerative, deliberative, demonstrative, derivative, descriptive, digestive, dilutive, diminutive, disincentive, disparages, dispositive, disruptive, dissipative, distributive, duplicative, elucidative, eruptive, evocative, executive, exhaustive, expletive, exploitative, exploitive, facultative, Federative, festive, figurative, fixative, formative, fugitive, furtive, generative, hypersensitive, illustrative, imaginative, imitative, imperative, inattentive, incentive, indicative, infinitive, informative, initiative, innovative, inoperative, inquisitive, insensitive, interpretive, intuitive, inventive, investigative, iterative, laxative, legislative, locomotive, lucrative, manipulative, meditative, motive, narrative, native, negative, neoconservative, nonautomotive, noncompetitive, noncumulative, nonexecutive, nonnative, normative, nutritive, operative, palliative, participative, pejorative, perceptive, plaintive, positive, preemptive, prerogative, preservative, presumptive, preventative, preventive, primitive, probative, prognosticative, prohibitive, provocative, punitive, putative, qualitative, quantitative, receptive, recuperative, redemptive, redistributive, regulative, rehabilitative, relative, remunerative, rep, repetitive, representative, restive, restorative, secretive, sedative, sensitive, speculative, stimulative, substantive, suggestive, superlative, supportive, talkative, tentative, ultraconservative, uncompetitive, uncooperative, unimaginative, uninformative, unreceptive, unrepresentative, vegetative, vituperative. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "c-d-e-e-e-i-t-t-v" | |
-2 letters: deceive, evicted, evictee, vedette, vidette. | |
-3 letters: deceit, detect, device, evited, vetted. | |
-4 letters: cited, civet, deice, edict, evict, evite, viced. | |
-5 letters: cede, cedi, cete, cite, deet, dice, diet, dite, dive, edit, eide, etic, iced, teed, tide, tied, vice, vide, vied. | |
| Words containing the letters "c-d-e-e-e-i-t-t-v" | |
+1 letter: detectives. | |
+4 letters: detectivelike, videocassette. | |
+5 letters: interconverted, videocassettes. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
