dick

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a detective (informal, dated slang)

   A private dick had been tailing the suspect for a week.

Slang for 'detective', an early 20th-century shortening of detective (the -dec- portion respelled). The personal-name connections (from Richard) are folk-etymological; the slang most plausibly clips detective.

Topics

External links

• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary
• Google Images