gumshoe

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.

His gumshoe, Hicks McTaggart, starts out in Depression-era Milwaukee, investigating the disappearance of the heiress to a dairy fortune.

From Los Angeles Times • Oct. 1, 2025

Melling’s scenery-chewing portrayal of the budding writer — and, here, amateur gumshoe — is one of the film’s chief delights.

From Washington Post • Jan. 3, 2023

The panel does intend on continuing its gumshoe work as long as possible, and is not planning to release its final report until December.

From Seattle Times • Sep. 21, 2022

The original gumshoe reporters on Watergate, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, who became the most famous journalists in the country, have reported on both events.

From Salon • Jun. 6, 2022

In literature and in the popular imagination, the all-seeing private eye—the gumshoe, the cinder dick, the sleuthhound, the shadow—displaced the crusading sheriff as the archetype of rough justice.

From "Killers of the Flower Moon" by David Grann