private eye

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

The author of “Gravity’s Rainbow” sends a private eye on the trail of a missing heiress in a complex, comic, Prohibition-era caper.

From The Wall Street Journal • Oct. 3, 2025

The article focused on Robert Winnett, the British journalist poised to take over The Post’s newsroom in November, and described his links to a private eye who used unethical media practices to land big exclusives.

From New York Times • Jun. 17, 2024

“The New York Trilogy,” which included “City of Glass,” “Ghosts” and “The Locked Room,” was a postmodern detective saga in which names and identities blur and one protagonist is a private eye named Paul Auster.

From Seattle Times • May 1, 2024

The great Richard Roundtree, who died this week at 81, played which private eye in five movies over a 50-year period?

From Slate • Oct. 27, 2023

During the Harding administration, in the early 1920s, the Justice Department had been packed with political cronies and unscrupulous officials, among them the head of the bureau: William Burns, the infamous private eye.

From "Killers of the Flower Moon" by David Grann