Sherlock Holmes

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈʃɜɹ.lɒk ˈhoʊmz/

Proper noun

Sherlock Holmes

1. A series of novels by Arthur Conan Doyle about a consulting detective with keen observational awareness, astute logical reasoning and professional forensic skills; also related media based on the books, such as movies.
2. The fictional detective who is the protagonist of the series.
   • 1960, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, “V & XX, XII”, in Jeeves in the Offing, London: Herbert Jenkins, →OCLC:

     “Oh, hullo, Mrs Cream.” The woman she was addressing was tall and thin with a hawk-like face that reminded me of Sherlock Holmes. She had an ink spot on her nose, the result of working on her novel of suspense. [...] This was the first time I had seen Ma Cream today, she having gone off around noon to lunch with some friends in Birmingham, and I would willingly not have seen her now, for something in her manner seemed to suggest that she spelled trouble. She was looking more like Sherlock Holmes than ever. Slap a dressing-gown on her and give her a violin, and she could have walked straight into Baker Street and no questions asked. [...] She sniffed. And if I were to say that I liked the way she sniffed, I would be wilfully deceiving my public. It was the sort of sniff Sherlock Holmes would have sniffed when about to clap the darbies on the chap who had swiped the Maharajah's ruby.
     [...]
     “Yes, sir, if that was the language of love, I'll eat my hat,” said the blood relation, alluding, I took it, to the beastly straw contraption in which she does her gardening, concerning which I can only say that it is almost as foul as Uncle Tom's Sherlock Holmes deerstalker, which has frightened more crows than any other lid in Worcestershire.

3. (figuratively, by extension) Any person who has or is considered to have great powers of observation and deduction.
   • 1978, Leslie Lonsdale-Cooper, Michael Turner, transl., Tintin in America (The Adventures of Tintin), Egmont, published 2012, →ISBN, page 45:

     What powers of deduction! . . . And what assurance! . . . A real Sherlock Holmes! I really didn’t think detectives like that existed, except in books!

Synonyms

• (person with great powers of deduction): Sherlock, Holmes

Derived terms

• Sherlock Holmesiana
• Sherlock Holmesish
• Sherlock Holmesque
• Sherlock Holmesy

Translations

fictional detective

• Amharic: ሼርሎክ ሆልምዝ m (šerlok holməz)
• Arabic: شرلوك هولمز m (šerluk hulms)
• Armenian: Շերլոք Հոլմս (Šerlokʻ Holms)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 歇洛克·福爾摩斯／歇洛克·福尔摩斯 (Xiēluòkè Fú'ěrmósī), 夏洛克·福爾摩斯／夏洛克·福尔摩斯 (Xiàluòkè Fú'ěrmósī)

• Danish: Sherlock Holmes
• Esperanto: Ŝerloko Holmso
• Greek: Σέρλοκ Χολμς m (Sérlok Cholms)
• Hebrew: שרלוק הולמס m
• Indonesian: Sherlock Holmes
• Japanese: シャーロック・ホームズ (Shārokku Hōmuzu)
• Korean: 셜록 홈즈 (Syeollok Homjeu)
• Macedonian: Шерлок Холмс m (Šerlok Holms)
• Polish: Sherlock Holmes m
• Portuguese: Sherlock Holmes m
• Russian: Ше́рлок Холмс m (Šérlok Xolms)

person with great powers of deduction

• Danish: Sherlock Holmes c
• Indonesian: Sherlock Holmes
• Polish: Sherlock Holmes m, Sherlock (pl) m
• Portuguese: Sherlock Holmes m
• Russian: Ше́рлок Холмс m (Šérlok Xolms)

See also

• Appendix:Sherlock Holmes concordance