Other forms: investigators
An investigator is somebody whose job is finding out what happened. A police investigator, a private investigator, the lead investigator.
The word covers police detectives, accident investigators, insurance investigators and journalists alike. Private investigator, shortened to PI, is the licensed one anybody can hire. In research, the principal investigator is the person who leads a study and holds the grant, which is a title rather than a description. Note investigative, as in investigative journalism, and that investigator sounds more official than detective and less official than officer.
1nouninvestigatorSomebody whose job is finding out what happened.
“Investigators are still trying to find out what caused the fire.”
investigator is a person who finds things out.
Latin investigator comes from investigare, to track — from vestigium, a footprint. An investigator is a follower of tracks, which is why the same root gives vestige, meaning what is left behind.
Latin
investigator
English, today
investigator
Attested in the mid‐16th century; from Latin investigator, from investigare, equivalent to investigate + -or.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA