sleuth

Etymology 1

Clipping of sleuthhound.

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. 2021-06-23, Carl Zimmer, quoting Michael Worobey, “Scientist Finds Early Virus Sequences That Had Been Mysteriously Deleted”, in The New York Times, →ISSN
2. (archaic) A sleuthhound; a bloodhound.
3. (obsolete) An animal’s trail or track.

verb

1. (intransitive, transitive) 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! 1922, Agatha Christie, The Secret Adversary

Etymology 2

From Old English slǣwþ, corresponding to slow + -th.

noun

1. (obsolete, uncountable) Slowness; laziness, sloth.
2. (rare, collective) 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… 1961, Noel Perrin, A Passport Secretly Green, page 89
   If these dainty adventurers weren’t being chased by a sleuth of bears or bogeys, they were being captured by Gypsies or thieves. 1995, Bobbie Ann Mason, The Girl Sleuth, page 13
   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. 2007, Elinor DeWire, The Lightkeepers’ Menagerie: Stories of Animals at Lighthouses, page 200