detect

English

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /dɪˈtɛkt/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛkt

Etymology 1

From Latin detectus, perfect passive participle of detegere (“to uncover or disclose”), from de- tegere (“to cover”); see tegument, tile, thatch.

Verb

detect (third-person singular simple present detects, present participle detecting, simple past and past participle detected)

1. To discover or find by careful search, examination, or probing.
   • 1960 June, “Talking of Trains: New B.R. research laboratory”, in Trains Illustrated, page 329:

     Diesel maintenance schedules are benefiting from work done on the magnificent Hilger & Watts electronic spectrograph for oil analysis, which detects minute quantities of metals in samples of used lubricating oil; [...].

Translations

to detect — see notice

to discover or find by careful search, examination, or probing

• Afrikaans: bespeuren
• Albanian: zbuloj (sq)
• Arabic: كَشَفَ (kašafa)
• Armenian: please add this translation if you can
• Assamese: ধৰা পেলোৱা (dhora pelüa)
• Bulgarian: откривам (bg) (otkrivam), намирам (bg) (namiram)
• Burmese: please add this translation if you can
• Catalan: detectar (ca)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 察覺／察觉 (zh) (chájué), 發覺／发觉 (zh) (fājué), 覺察／觉察 (zh) (juéchá)

• Czech: odhalit (cs), objevit (cs), najít (cs), detekovat (cs)
• Dutch: detecteren (nl)
• Esperanto: detekti
• Estonian: tuvastama
• Finnish: havaita (fi), huomata (fi)
• French: déceler (fr), détecter (fr)
• Georgian: please add this translation if you can
• German: entdecken (de)
• Hebrew: גילה m (gilá), זיהה (zihá), חשף (he) (khasáf)
• Hungarian: felfedez (hu)
• Icelandic: please add this translation if you can
• Ido: des-kovrar, des-vel-izar
• Italian: individuare (it), rilevare (it)
• Japanese: 検出する (kenshutsu-suru), 見付ける (ja) (mitsukeru)
• Khmer: រកឃើញ (rɔɔk khəəñ)
• Korean: 찾다 (ko) (chatda), 탐지하다 (tamjihada), 수색하다 (ko) (susaekhada)
• Latin: dētegō
• Maori: hopu
• Mongolian: please add this translation if you can
• Polish: wykryć (pl), wykrywać (pl)
• Portuguese: detectar (pt) (Brazil), detetar (pt) (Portugal)
• Romanian: detecta (ro)
• Russian: обнару́живать (ru) (obnarúživatʹ), обнару́жить (ru) (obnarúžitʹ), выявля́ть (ru) (vyjavljátʹ), вы́явить (ru) (výjavitʹ)
• Serbo-Croatian: otkriti (sh)
• Spanish: detectar (es)
• Swedish: upptäcka (sv)
• Tamil: கண்டுபிடி (ta) (kaṇṭupiṭi)
• Thai: please add this translation if you can
• Turkish: please add this translation if you can
• Ukrainian: виявляти (uk) (vyjavljaty)
• Vietnamese: phát hiện (vi), dò ra

Derived terms

• autodetect
• codetect
• detectability
• detectable
• detecter
• detectible
• detection
• detective
• detectograph
• detector
• immunodetect
• misdetect
• nondetect
• overdetect
• redetect
• underdetect
• undetectability

 

Related terms

• metal-detect

 

Descendants

• → Catalan: detectar
• → French: détecter
  • → Dutch: detecteren
• → Portuguese: detectar, detetar (Portugal)
• → Romanian: detecta
• → Spanish: detectar

See also

• discover
• find
• stumble upon

Adjective

detect (not comparable)

1. (obsolete) Detected.

Etymology 2

Back-formation from detective.

Verb

detect (third-person singular simple present detects, present participle detecting, simple past and past participle detected)

1. (intransitive, informal) To work or solve cases as a detective.
   • 1926, Dorothy L. Sayers, Clouds of Witness (Lord Peter Wimsey; 2), T. Fisher Unwin, →ISBN, page 105:

     Parker would in all likelihood have done so; he was paid to detect and to do nothing else, and neither his natural gifts nor his education (at Barrow-in-Furness Grammar School) prompted him to stray into side-tracks at the beck of an ill-regulated imagination.

   • 1978, Leslie Lonsdale-Cooper, Michael Turner, transl., Tintin in America (The Adventures of Tintin), Egmont, published 2012, →ISBN, page 45:

     Let me introduce myself: Mike MacAdam, hotel detective. / H-how d-’you do? / Mind if I begin detecting?

   • 1991, Hillary Waugh, Hillary Waugh's Guide to Mysteries & Mystery Writing Novel, Writer's Digest Books, →ISBN, page 11:

     In a detective story, a detective detects; an active effort is made to determine who committed a given crime, and detecting the identity of a criminal could not be done until there were detectives.

   • 2019 May 9, Ben Kenigsberg, “'Pokémon Detective Pikachu' Review: A Cat and (Electric) Mouse Game”, in The New York Times‎^[1], archived from the original on 2022-12-17:

     That aversion is tested when he teams up with Pikachu (voiced by Ryan Reynolds), his father's detecting partner, after the father appears to have been killed in an accident.

References

• “detect”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “detect”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
• “detect”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.
• “detect”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.

Anagrams

• dectet