private detective
"private-detective" is a 16-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“private detective” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 17
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Person who is not a government official who is hired to provide information about a person or group that is not widely available
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | private detective |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 17 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “private detective” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
private detective is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Person who is not a government official who is hired to provide information about a person or group that is not widely available".
private detective doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. This entry stands alone in our confusable dataset, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
Our source data has no etymology on file for this entry, so its spelling is easiest explained by how it's pronounced rather than where it came from. The correct English form is private detective, spelled P-R-I-V-A-T-E- -D-E-T-E-C-T-I-V-E.
Definition
- 1Person who is not a government official who is hired to provide information about a person or group that is not widely available
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “private detective”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is P-R-I-V-A-T-E- -D-E-T-E-C-T-I-V-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.