detect
Usage
What are other ways to say detect?
To detect implies becoming aware of something that had been obscure, secret, or concealed: to detect a flaw in reasoning. To ascertain is to verify facts by inquiry or analysis: to ascertain the truth about an event. To learn is to add to one's knowledge or information: to learn a language. The verb discover is used with objective clauses as a synonym of learn in order to suggest that the new information acquired is surprising to the learner: I discovered that she had been married before.
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.
See Examples For:
Astronomers detect mysterious burst of energy from a galaxy far, far away.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 12, 2026
I passed beneath an unobtrusive white arch that, I later learned, uses artificial intelligence to detect weapons and notify guards nearby.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 9, 2026
The extended X-ray activity was energetic, but it occurred at wavelengths that conventional gamma-ray instruments would have struggled to detect.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 8, 2026
His spokesman said Kenya had the capacity to detect, isolate and manage suspected cases, adding that so far more than 650,000 travellers had been screened and 267 samples tested.
From BBC ● Oct. 7, 2026
“The motion sensors in the screen will detect your arm, head, and torso movement,” she explained.
From "Mr. Lemoncello's Library Olympics" by Chris Grabenstein
The 82-year-old is the brains behind the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, a telescope embedded in a cubic kilometer of Antarctic ice that detects neutrinos -- particles with almost no mass that seldom interact with other matter.
From Barron's ● Oct. 6, 2026
Belgian physicist Prof Francis Halzen has won the Nobel Prize in Physics for his pioneering work on an observatory that detects particles from space, shedding light on the distant universe.
From BBC ● Oct. 6, 2026
Researchers now want to understand more precisely how the shark sensory system detects and processes these distant acoustic signals.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 30, 2026
RBC also detects that during major drawdowns, confidence and sentiment gauges move sharply with readings like the National Federation of Independent Business and the American Association of Individual Investors dropping sharply.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 28, 2026
But he detects annoyance on the faces of some students and even some teachers who watch him.
From "Hunger of Memory" by Richard Rodriguez
Since September 10, the IOM detected more than 20,000 crossings to Djibouti from Ethiopia, despite a surge in conflict in Yemen.
From Barron's ● Oct. 11, 2026
Three months after the fire first ignited, heat is still being detected beneath the ground.
From BBC ● Oct. 10, 2026
Such a process could explain why Hubble detected niobium while observing the star.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 9, 2026
Lane said the European Central Bank has not detected any noticeable pickup in wages to date.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 8, 2026
Hedge had already detected that she wasn’t human.
From "The Mark of Athena" by Rick Riordan
"The two-month delay in detecting and reporting the incident to the city is unacceptable."
From BBC ● Oct. 10, 2026
Seth Spergel, a managing partner at cybersecurity investor Merlin Ventures, said much of the momentum this year springs from the emergence of frontier AI models capable of detecting security vulnerabilities at lightning speeds.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 8, 2026
One of its tasks will be detecting micrometeoroids, tiny pieces of space debris that strike the lunar surface.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 8, 2026
Lee and his colleagues developed a new method for detecting these quark wakes.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 6, 2026
In other words, if one used equipment designed to examine electrons as particles, they would appear to behave as particles; if one used equipment best suited for detecting waves, they appeared as waves.
From "Big Science" by Michael Hiltzik
Vocabulary lists containing detect
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