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"They were the footprints of a gigantic hound!" Those canine tracks in Arthur Conan Doyle's The Hound of the Baskervilles set the great Sherlock Holmes sleuthing on the trail of a murderer. It was a case of art imitating etymology. When Middle English speakers first borrowed sleuth from the Old Norse word slōth, the term referred to the track of an animal or person. In Scotland, sleuth hund referred to a kind of bloodhound used to hunt game or track down fugitives from justice. In 19th-century U.S. English, sleuthhound, soon shortened to sleuth, began to be used for a detective. From there, sleuth slipped into verb use to apply to what a sleuth does.
Examples of sleuth in a Sentence
Cheyenne Roundtree, Rolling Stone, 28 Apr. 2026
Social media sleuths had already dug up wild comments from Russini about Vrabel and her husband before Vrabel’s decision to step away on Wednesday, but the additional posts that were found appeared to be too much for Russini.
—Ryan Gaydos Outkick, FOXNews.com, 24 Apr. 2026
Sophie Brookover, Vulture, 24 Apr. 2026
Far from the mortal enemies they are destined to become, the pair become friends and combine sleuthing skills to try and solve a globe-trotting mystery that unfolds over the eight episodes.
—Stewart Clarke, Deadline, 14 Apr. 2026
See All Example Sentences for sleuth
Cite this Entry
“Sleuth.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sleuth. Accessed 1 May. 2026.
Copy CitationKids Definition
sleuth
1 of 2 nounsleuth
2 of 2 verbNoun
a shortened form of sleuthhound "a dog that follows a track or trail by scent," from Middle English sleuth "a track or trail"; of Norse origin
