bloodhound
/ˈblʌd.haʊnd/ noun
Forms bloodhounds blood-hound bloudhound bloud-hound
- noun A large scenthound famed for its ability to follow a scent many days old, over vast distances. This dog is often used as a police dog to track missing people, fleeing suspects, or escaped prisoners.
- noun (figurative, informal) A detective or other person skilled at finding people or clues.
- noun (archaic) A bloodthirsty person.
Synonyms
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English blodhound, blodhond; equivalent to blood + hound. Cognate with Dutch bloedhond (“bloodhound”), Middle Low German blōthunt (“bloodhound”), German Bluthund (“bloodhound”), Danish blodhund (“bloodhound”), Swedish blodhund (“bloodhound”). The detective sense follows from the dog's ability to follow a trail.
Webster’s 1913
- noun A breed of large and powerful dogs, with long, smooth, and pendulous ears, and remarkable for acuteness of smell. It is employed to recover game or prey which has escaped wounded from a hunter, and for tracking criminals. Formerly it was used for pursuing runaway slaves. Other varieties of dog are often used for the same purpose and go by the same name. The Cuban bloodhound is said to be a variety of the mastiff.
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “bloodhound”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details