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 September 3, 2026) - Person who is not a government official who is hired to provide information about a person or group that is not widely available
Corpus desk
Index EN-private-detective · private detective · English
private detective · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 17 letters
- VOW-7 7 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "P" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | private detective |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 17 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “private detective” in English
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
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how private detective appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
So you're a private detective? I didn't know they existed, except in books, or else they were greasy little men snooping around hotel corridors.
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.