investigator
noun
Simple meaning
A scientist who devotes himself to doing research.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
ihnvehstuhgayterSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ɪnˈvɛstəɡeɪtɚ
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
A police officer who investigates crimes
One who investigates.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B2 · Upper Intermediate
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Typical Use
- Neutral / general English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A police officer who investigates crimes
Used this way, investigator is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Nearby words
- detective , a specialist term, precise but narrower
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use investigator
- “The private investigator solved the mystery quickly and efficiently.”
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
The scientist in charge of an experiment or research project.
Someone who can be employed as a detective to collect information.
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
- detectivenoun
- investigateverb
- inspectornoun
- experimentnoun
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Words can change meaning depending on context.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.