2 (also private detective)BOFIND OUT someone who is paid to discover information about someone or something 私人侦探,私家侦探
She hired a detective to find out if her husband was having an affair.
她雇了一个私人侦探调查她丈夫是否有外遇。
3detective workefforts to discover information, find out how something works, answer a difficult question etc 调查工作,研究工作
It took a lot of detective work to discover the cause of the problem.
经过大量的调查研究工作才发现问题的原因。
Examples from the Corpus
detective work• Brilliantdetective work with a little lucktossed in to catch the savvykiller.• So it would take more years of doggeddetective work by a handful of investigators to connect the dots.• Much slow and painstaking geological detective work is needed to make correlations such as these, but the results can be very valuable.• Finding the missing parts has been a lucky blending of good fortune and good detective work.• Drawn to the subject via a footnote, McKillop did some literarydetective work to uncover Deeks's story.• It takes a bit of detective work to trace the symptom back to the cause.• In fact tying a pollution to its source can be a tricky piece of detective work.• It takes some detective work to trace the symptom back to its cause.• Late one night, they ran into Ken Creese, one of two detectives working the case.
4.detective story/novel etcALAMTa story etc about a crime, often a murder, and a detective who tries to find out who did it 侦探故事/小说等
Examples from the Corpus
detective story/novel etc• It was the feeling she had had as a child when she frightened herself with a detective story.• But they can also be used to play the game that is the simpleblueprintdetective story.• I wanted to stay and read the latest EncyclopediaBrowndetective story.• Elizabeth did not like detective stories, because some one was usually hanged at the end of them.• Their approach is informal and Physics of StellarEvolution and Cosmology reads like a scientificdetective story.• This is the detective novel or the crime novel which makes its comments on life through humour rather than more directly.• Your detective of the detective story, of course, went about seeking information.• Keyelements are missing, primarily the complexities, surprises and textures of the detective stories.
Examples from the Corpus
detective• Detectives made a TVappeal for anyone with any information about the crime to contact them.• The customers say you'd have to be a detective to make sense of it.• I'm a detective with the Los Angeles Police Department. Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?• Anyone with information is being asked to call DetectiveMike Place.• Let me make sure I understand you, officer-mister detective.• a privatedetective• The locksnapped and the detectivelevered up the bottomsection.• Furthermore, the detectives are no longer in that basicsymbol of police identity - the uniform.• Form is one of the hiddenassets of the detectivestory.• Unless she and Mr Greenleaf decided to stay to see what the detective was going to do with him.• He was a very intelligent and perceptive young detective.