detect

Etymology 1

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

verb

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

adj

1. (obsolete) Detected.

Etymology 2

Back-formation from detective.

verb

1. (intransitive, informal) To work or solve cases as a detective.
   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. 1926, Dorothy L. Sayers, Clouds of Witness (Lord Peter Wimsey; 2), T. Fisher Unwin, page 105
   Let me introduce myself: Mike MacAdam, hotel detective. / H-how d-’you do? / Mind if I begin detecting? 1978, Leslie Lonsdale-Cooper, Michael Turner, transl., Tintin in America (The Adventures of Tintin), Egmont, published 2012, page 45
   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. 1991, Hillary Waugh, Hillary Waugh's Guide to Mysteries & Mystery Writing Novel, Writer's Digest Books, page 11
   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. 2019-05-09, Ben Kenigsberg, “'Pokémon Detective Pikachu' Review: A Cat and (Electric) Mouse Game”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 2022-12-17