thám tử

A police officer tasked with collecting evidence and information in order to solve a crime; an investigator.

• He worked as a detective with the agency for five years.
• The detective kept them in view. He made his way casually along the inside of the shelter until he reached an open scuttle close to where the two men were standing talking. Eavesdropping was not a thing Larard would have practised from choice, but there were times when, in the public interest, he had to do it, and this was one of them.

thám tử, thám tử tư

A person employed to find information not otherwise available to the public.

⚠ Học sinh hay viết 'một cái thám tử'; đúng phải là 'một thám tử' vì 'thám tử' đã chỉ người. — Từ này trùng với nghĩa 'cảnh sát điều tra' trong các ngữ cảnh thông thường, tuy nhiên 'thám tử' nhấn mạnh vào tính chất điều tra bí mật hoặc tư nhân hơn là chức danh hành chính trong ngành công an.

ℹ Trong tiếng Việt, từ 'thám tử' có thể dùng cho cả người làm việc cho cảnh sát và người làm việc độc lập (thám tử tư).

• […] Sherlock Holmes remarked calmly. […] "Well, I have a trade of my own. I suppose I am the only one in the world. I'm a consulting detective, if you can understand what that is. Here in London we have lots of Government detectives and lots of private ones. When these fellows are at fault they come to me, and I manage to put them on the right scent. They lay all the evidence before me, and I am generally able, by the help of my knowledge of the history of crime, to set them straight. There is a strong family resemblance about misdeeds, and if you have all the details of a thousand at your finger ends, it is odd if you can't unravel the thousand and first.[…]"
• Had they responded this way in France or America, this wouldn't have surprised me, but wasn't everyone in England supposed to be a detective? Wasn't every crime, no matter how complex, solved in a timely fashion by either a professional or a hobbyist? That's the impression you get from British books and TV shows. Sherlock Holmes, Miss Marple, Hetty Wainthropp, Inspector George Gently: they come from every class and corner of the country. There’s even Edith Pargeter's Brother Cadfael, a Benedictine monk who solved crimes in twelfth-century Shrewsbury. No surveillance cameras, no fingerprints, not even a telephone, and still he cracked every case that came his way.

trinh thám

Employed in detecting.

ℹ Trong tiếng Việt, từ này thường được dùng như một tính từ bổ nghĩa cho các danh từ như 'tiểu thuyết', 'phim' hoặc 'công việc'.

• He really likes reading detective novels.Anh ấy rất thích đọc những cuốn tiểu thuyết trinh thám.