INVESTIGATOR

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does investigator mean? 

• INVESTIGATOR (noun)
  The noun INVESTIGATOR has 3 senses:

1. a scientist who devotes himself to doing research

2. someone who investigates

3. a police officer who investigates crimes

  Familiarity information: INVESTIGATOR used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• INVESTIGATOR (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A scientist who devotes himself to doing research

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

investigator; research worker; researcher

Hypernyms ("investigator" is a kind of...):

scientist (a person with advanced knowledge of one or more sciences)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "investigator"):

experimenter (a research worker who conducts experiments)

boffin ((British slang) a scientist or technician engaged in military research)

fieldworker (a researcher who works in the field)

post doc; postdoc (a scholar or researcher who is involved in academic study beyond the level of a doctoral degree)

Derivation:

investigate (investigate scientifically)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Someone who investigates

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Hypernyms ("investigator" is a kind of...):

expert (a person with special knowledge or ability who performs skillfully)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "investigator"):

adjuster; adjustor; claim agent; claims adjuster; claims adjustor (one who investigates insurance claims or claims for damages and recommends an effective settlement)

coroner; medical examiner (a public official who investigates by inquest any death not due to natural causes)

detective (an investigator engaged or employed in obtaining information not easily available to the public)

examiner; inspector (an investigator who observes carefully)

ombudsman (a government appointee who investigates complaints by private persons against the government)

Instance hyponyms:

Samuel Wiesenthal; Wiesenthal (Austrian investigator of Nazi war crimes (born in 1908))

Sense 3

Meaning:

A police officer who investigates crimes

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

detective; investigator; police detective; tec

Hypernyms ("investigator" is a kind of...):

officer; police officer; policeman (a member of a police force)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "investigator"):

dick; gumshoe; hawkshaw (someone who is a detective)

plainclothesman (a detective who wears civilian clothes on duty)

tracer (an investigator who is employed to find missing persons or missing goods)

Derivation:

investigate (conduct an inquiry or investigation of)

 Context examples 

The Optical Microscopy Shared resource provides support for Cancer Center investigators in identification relevant methods for imaging study, and assists researchers with experimental design, image acquisition, training, technical support, and data interpretation.

(Optical Microscopy Shared Resource, NCI Thesaurus)

Investigators at Stanford University enrolled 120 people aged 7 to 55 with diagnosed peanut allergy in the Peanut Oral Immunotherapy Study: Safety Efficacy and Discovery, or POISED.

(Few people with peanut allergy tolerate peanut after stopping oral immunotherapy, National Institutes of Health)

Investigators have found that sesame allergy is common among children with other food allergies, occurring in an estimated 17% of this population.

(17% of Food-Allergic Children Have Sesame Allergy, National Institutes of Health)

The study was conducted by Pauline Mendola, Ph.D., an investigator in the Epidemiology Branch at NIH’s Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, and colleagues.

(Persistent organic pollutants in maternal blood linked to smaller fetal size, National Institutes of Health)

Investigators then evaluated how well memory T cells performed when mice ate less.

(Memory T cells shelter in bone marrow, boosting immunity in mice with restricted diets, National Institutes of Health)

The investigators gave the participants various movement and strength tests.

(Physical Activity May Reduce Age-Related Movement Problems, NIH)

The textual representation of the planned activity from the point of view of a blinded participant (study subject or study investigator).

(Planned Activity Blinded Description, NCI Thesaurus)

Finally, the investigators found that one bacterial species, Clostridium scindens, controls metabolism of bile acids in the mouse gut — and ultimately CXCL16 expression, NKT cell accumulation, and tumor growth in the liver.

(Study finds gut microbiome can control antitumor immune function in liver, National Institutes of Health)

Many investigators believe that cancer stem cells cause relapse of the tumor and that novel cancer therapies should specifically target those cells.

(Cancer Stem Cell, NCI Thesaurus)

The investigators noted that aspirin was associated with a significantly increased risk of bleeding, primarily in the gastrointestinal tract and brain.

(Daily low-dose aspirin found to have no effect on healthy life span in older people, National Institutes of Health)