sherlock
/ˈʃɜɹ.lɒk/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.73 in modern English
17
Scrabble Score
8
Letters
2
Syllables
8
Unique Chars
Meaning
name
An English surname transferred from the nickname.
name
A male given name transferred from the surname, of rare usage.
name
A detective, especially used sarcastically to address somebody who has stated the obvious.
Humorous
verb
To obsolete a unique feature in third-party software by introducing a similar or identical feature to the OS or a first-party program/app.
Slang
verb
Alternative letter-case form of Sherlock.
Example Sentences
- "— Where that arrow on the map says 'You are here', that must be where we are. — Yeah, well done Sherlock."
- ""Anybody could have Sherlocked at a glance," sniffed young Kennilworth, "that it had been packed by a crazy person!""
- "But almost at once I told myself that I ought to have Sherlocked the truth the moment this troubled, beautiful being had appeared on deck."
- "He wasn't crew, and he wasn't talent. I Sherlocked that from his clothes: […]"
- "That afternoon when the boys were in the field Mr. Frickstad sherlocked around in the tents and under the cots looking for a missing rocking-chair."
- "It is reported that Governor McCall will also appoint a committee to investigate the high cost of living, but in the meantime individual investigators have Sherlocked around and their stories would make DeQuincy's Life of an Opium Eater fade into insignificance."
Etymology
Supposedly from an Old English scir-locc (“bright-lock”). One of a group of surnames originally denoting hair colour, parallel to Blacklock, Harlock (Old English har (“grey”)), Silverlock. In the sense of “a detective”, from Sherlock Holmes. In the computing verb sense, refers to the software Sherlock, which in 2002 came to replicate some of the features of an earlier complementary program called Watson.
Origin
- Source language: Old English
Word Breakdown
- Root: scir-locc