Dictionary

metal-detect en · VERB

Etymology

Back-formation from metal detector.

Meanings

1. (ambitransitive) To use a metal detector to find metal objects on the surface or buried underground.
   • Flowerdew has three known cemeteries, containing Woodland Indians, 1620s colonists and enslaved individuals from about 1760. All three are in the area metal-detected last March. […] At the Little Bighorn Battlefield, in Montana, volunteers have used their metal-detecting machines to pinpoint artifacts, whose position rewrote the story of Custer’s Last Stand. 2013 August 2, Taft Kiser, “Open Season on History”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 03 Jun 2021:
2. (transitive) To make (someone) pass through a metal detector to detect concealed metal objects.
   • “They’re testing you,” she said to her son, James, after she was finally cleared, metal-detected and led upstairs to the visiting room, a spare, linoleum-floored space inside the hospital’s high-security building. 2017 September 27, Mac McClelland, “When ‘Not Guilty’ Is a Life Sentence”, in The New York Times Magazine, archived from the original on 04 Jul 2020:

Forms