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View synonyms for private eye

private eye

noun

, Slang.
  1. a private detective.


private eye

noun

  1. informal.
    a private detective
“Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged” 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012


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Word History and Origins

Origin of private eye1

1935–40; eye, allusive phonetic rendering of I, abbreviation of investigator
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Idioms and Phrases

A privately employed detective, as opposed to one working for the police or another authority. For example, The children loved stories about private eyes, and Janey wanted to become one . This expression comes from the term private investigator , the “i” of investigator being changed to “eye,” which plays on the idea of a person looking into things. [1930s]
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Example Sentences

His college classmate, Bill Marshall, is a South Florida private eye.

Johnny Depp has a pretty sizeable role in Tusk as the Montreal private eye Guy LaPointe.

The hero is Lucas Spero, a veteran of the wars in the Middle East and a tough guy private eye.

And Cormoran Strike is a private eye whose company I would share again no matter whose name is on the dust jacket.

His widow gave the private eye a box full of tapes marked “JACKSON” that her husband had been working on.

I felt like flashing a twenty at him like a private eye did in the old tough-books, but I knew it wouldn't work.

Morays professions to Elizabeth may have been a blind, but his letters for Marys private eye have a more genuine air.

In his pocket was a great bunch of newspaper clippings, intended for the private eye of the new Mrs. De Foe's one-time secretary.

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

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