Literary notes about detect (AI summary)
In literary texts, the term "detect" is often employed to convey the act of discerning subtle details or uncovering hidden truths. It is used to describe both the physical and metaphorical process of discovery—from unmasking elusive mysteries in suspenseful narratives ([1], [2]) to revealing character traits or philosophical nuances ([3], [4]). Authors utilize "detect" to illustrate careful observation or insight, as when a character discerns a threat or anomaly in their surroundings ([5], [6]), or when intellectual inquiry allows one to perceive flaws and mysteries in art, nature, or society ([7], [8]). This broad application underscores a universal human impulse to search for understanding beyond what is immediately visible ([9], [10]).
- Wherever the mystery rests, I trust I shall, this night, be able to detect it.
— from The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Ward Radcliffe - I was hoping to detect the secret of his life in the last words that might escape from his lips!
— from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas: An Underwater Tour of the World by Jules Verne - Jealousy is never satisfied with anything short of an omniscience that would detect the subtlest fold of the heart.
— from The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot - Still, I thought I could detect in his physiognomy a mind owning better qualities than his father ever possessed.
— from Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë - Although he thought this very distinctly, he durst not move his lips lest the old woman should detect him.
— from Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens - All this time Mr. Marvel had been glancing about him intently, listening for faint footfalls, trying to detect imperceptible movements.
— from The Invisible Man: A Grotesque Romance by H. G. Wells - First among the virtues found in the State, wisdom comes into view, and in this I detect a certain peculiarity.
— from The Republic by Plato - Yet in this matter of the First Cause we detect, in the full flood of Confucianism, the potent influence of Taoist and Buddhist speculations.
— from Myths and Legends of China by E. T. C. Werner - A clinical thermometer is accurate when it enables us to detect very slight differences in the temperature of the blood.
— from The Analysis of Mind by Bertrand Russell - He was never on the lookout to detect a slight, but saw one as soon as anybody when intentionally given.
— from Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete by Ulysses S. Grant
