Idiom
private eye
Meaning
A private personal detective, employed to gather information about someone.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Examples
“The family hired a private eye to find their lost dog.”
“A private eye watches the house from a parked car.”
“You need a private eye to help solve this mystery.”
“She suspected her business partner was stealing money, so she hired a private eye to follow him.”
“The insurance company sent a private eye to check if the man was actually injured or just pretending.”
“He decided to become a private eye after working as a police officer for twenty years.”
“A private eye took photos of the secret meeting to prove the lawyer was talking to the rival company.”
“The weary private eye spent weeks trailing the suspect through the city, hoping to uncover the truth behind the mysterious disappearance.”
Examples
simple
“The family hired a private eye to find their lost dog.”
“A private eye watches the house from a parked car.”
“You need a private eye to help solve this mystery.”
contextual
“She suspected her business partner was stealing money, so she hired a private eye to follow him.”
“The insurance company sent a private eye to check if the man was actually injured or just pretending.”
“He decided to become a private eye after working as a police officer for twenty years.”
“A private eye took photos of the secret meeting to prove the lawyer was talking to the rival company.”
complex
“The weary private eye spent weeks trailing the suspect through the city, hoping to uncover the truth behind the mysterious disappearance.”
Origin
Derived from the abbreviation P.I. for private investigator, the term relies upon the homophony between the letter I and the word eye. It further references the eye as a symbol of surveillance. The transition from the initialism to the noun occurred as the visual metaphor for observation aligned with the phonetic requirements of the abbreviation.
Key words
Related idioms
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