WORD HISTORY: Sleuth

Tracking down the history of the word sleuth requires a bit of etymological sleuthing. The immediate ancestor of our word is the compound sleuthhound, "a dog, such as a bloodhound, used for tracking or pursuing." This term took on a figurative sense, "tracker, pursuer," which is closely related to the sense "detective." From sleuthhound came the shortened form sleuth, recorded in the sense "detective" as early as 1872. The first part of the term sleuthhound means "track, path, trail," and is first recorded in a Middle English work written probably around 1200. The Middle English word, which had the form sloth, with eu representing the Scots development of the Middle English (o), was a borrowing of the Old Norse word slodh, "a track or trail."