sherlock

Valid in Scrabble

Scrabble points
17
Words With Friends
18
Letters
8
Pronunciation
/ˈʃɜɹ.lɒk/

Definition of sherlock

7 senses · 2 parts of speech · etymology included

name

  1. An English surname transferred from the nickname.
See all 7 definitions

name

  1. An English surname transferred from the nickname.
  2. A male given name transferred from the surname, of rare usage.
  3. (humorous)A detective, especially used sarcastically to address somebody who has stated the obvious.
    “— Where that arrow on the map says 'You are here', that must be where we are. — Yeah, well done Sherlock.”

verb

  1. (informal)To deduce.
    “"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: […]”
  2. (informal)To search.
    “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.”
    “Mlle. Belge's eyes Sherlocked over her chorus until it matched up those curls.”
  3. (slang)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.
    “The thing software developers fear most is being "sherlocked".”
    “All three developers are in a position common enough that it even has a name in the community. They have been "sherlocked".”
    “Last year, when Apple released iOS 7 it added a feature to the Photo app, allowing users to sort photos on the basis of location and date. Photoworks, a third-party app, too offered same functionality. In response, app developer Stephen Orth tweeted, "I guess my new app just got sherlocked."”
  4. (alt-of)Alternative letter-case form of Sherlock.

Definitions from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA.

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…

See full 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.

Anagrams of sherlock

1 play · some not in Scrabble

Words you can make from sherlock

193 playable · top: CHOKERS (16 pts)

Best play chokers 16 points

7-letter words

5 words

6-letter words

19 words

5-letter words

52 words

4-letter words

62 words

3-letter words

39 words

2-letter words

15 words

Hooks

1 extension · 1 back

A single letter you can add to sherlock to make another valid word.

Find your best play with sherlock

See every word you can make from a set of letters that includes sherlock, or browse word lists you can mine for high-scoring plays.