sleuth

noun

1. A detective.

   “1908, Edith Van Dyne (Frank L. Baum), Aunt Jane’s Nieces at Millville Do ye want me to become a sleuth, or engage detectives to track the objects of your erroneous philanthropy?”

   ““This is a great piece of sleuth work for sure, and it significantly advances efforts to understand the origin of SARS-CoV-2,” said Michael Worobey, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Arizona who was not involved in the study.”

2. (archaic)A sleuthhound; a bloodhound.
3. (obsolete)An animal’s trail or track.
4. (obsolete, uncountable)Slowness; laziness, sloth.
5. (collective, rare)A group of bears.

   “As quietly as if I were practicing to join a sleuth of bears, I crept out the door and went on home, eventually winding up in the garage…”

   “If these dainty adventurers weren’t being chased by a sleuth of bears or bogeys, they were being captured by Gypsies or thieves.”

   “From the darkness came the howls of routs of wolves and bands of coyotes, the rumbling growls of a sleuth of bears or the bugles of a gang of elk.”

verb

1. (ambitransitive)To act as a detective; to try to discover who committed a crime, or, more generally, to solve a mystery.

   “We must discover where he lives, what he does — sleuth him, in fact!”