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private detective:
(also ‘detective‘, ‘private investigator‘, ‘private eye‘, ‘sleuth‘; plural: ‘private detectives‘)
a private detective (Sherlock Holmes — the legendary lead character from the crime fiction stories by Cannon Doyle) trying to find clues at a crime scene
a smart person who knows how to find out evidence or how to dig out information related to crimes from others secretly, and has a license to do so, usually by following people/suspects or by making friends with people and then get information by asking causal questions or just by observing crime scenes, people suspected of having involvement in crime, etc.,
a female private detective, secretly shooting a video of somebody’s activities to use it as evidence
e.g.
The widow hired a private detective to find out how her rich husband was killed and who killed him.
Most of the mega businesses employ one or more private detectives to keep an eye on the insiders who may pass on their secrets to their rivals or competitors.
two police detectives with a criminal or suspect (on the left, a uniformed police officer and on the right, a plain clothes police detective)
{Note: A ‘private detective’ is different from a “police detective“, in that a private detective can be hired or employed by anybody who can pay his/her fee; whereas a police detective is a government employee who works for the police department in solving crimes that are registered by the police department; therefore, a police detective cannot be hired or engaged by people in general.}
(a sample of the badge/license shield a licensed private detective or investigator must have when on the job of investigation)
[Return to “detective“.]
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