private eye
Americannoun
noun
Etymology
Origin of private eye
1935–40; eye, allusive phonetic rendering of I, abbreviation of investigator
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The author of “Gravity’s Rainbow” sends a private eye on the trail of a missing heiress in a complex, comic, Prohibition-era caper.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 3, 2025
The article focused on Robert Winnett, the British journalist poised to take over The Post’s newsroom in November, and described his links to a private eye who used unethical media practices to land big exclusives.
From New York Times ● Jun. 17, 2024
Apple TV+ has “Sugar,” starring Colin Farrell as a cinephile private eye in contemporary L.A. hired to locate a missing woman.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 28, 2024
“The New York Trilogy,” which included “City of Glass,” “Ghosts” and “The Locked Room,” was a postmodern detective saga in which names and identities blur and one protagonist is a private eye named Paul Auster.
From Seattle Times ● May 1, 2024
An undercover private eye was placed in Savage’s boardinghouse.
From "Killers of the Flower Moon" by David Grann
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.
