gumshoe

gumshoe

English

WOTD – 16 August 2010

Gumshoe (sneaker or rubber overshoe).

Etymology

gum +‎ shoe[1]

Pronunciation

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /ˈɡʌm.ʃuː/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

Noun

gumshoe (plural gumshoes)

1. A sneaker or rubber overshoe. [from mid 19th c.]
2. (slang, Canada, US) A detective. [from early 20th c.]

   Synonyms: detective, dick, private eye, sleuth

   • 1920, William MacLeod Raine, chapter 20, in The Big-Town Round-Up:

     "Who's this gumshoe guy from the bush league tailin' us?"

Translations

sneaker or rubber overshoe

Armenian: կրկնակոշիկ (hy) (krknakošik) Bulgarian: гуменка f (gumenka), галош m (galoš) Finnish: kumitossu (sneaker), kalossi (fi) (rubber overshoe) Romanian: galoș (ro) m Russian: гало́ша (ru) (galóša)

slang: a detective

Armenian: խուզարկու (hy) (xuzarku) Bengali: টিকটিকি (bn) (ṭikṭiki) Bulgarian: детектив m (detektiv) Finnish: kyttä (fi), dekkari (fi) German: Schnüffler (de) m Romanian: detectiv (ro) m Russian: детекти́в (ru) (detektív) Spanish: sabueso (es) m

Verb

gumshoe (third-person singular simple present gumshoes, present participle gumshoeing, simple past and past participle gumshoed)

1. (slang) To act as a detective.
   • 1933, United States. Congress. House. Committee on Agriculture, Hearings‎, page 25:

     The next thing they did was to send a man sent down there from Baltimore and he spent a good deal of time gumshoeing around in that county trying to get another individual put in as secretary-treasurer.

   • 1988 September 23, Achy Obejas, “Calendar”, in Chicago Reader:

     But these days, more and more women are gumshoeing through the pages of murder mysteries.

Translations

to act as a detective

German: schnüffeln (de)

References

1. “gumshoe”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

Anagrams

• hugsome