ferret out

Idioms and Phrases

Uncover and bring to light by searching, as in Sandy was a superb reporter, tireless in ferreting out whatever facts were needed for her story . This expression alludes to hunting with ferrets, weasel-like animals formerly used to drive rabbits out of their burrows. [c. 1600]

Example Sentences

Apparently the Platonic method of ferreting out hidden meanings was key to the neocons' certainty that Iraqi WMDs existed.

From Salon

Presidential campaigns routinely research potential vice-presidential nominees in order to ferret out any potentially embarrassing revelations.

From BBC

The company recently released tools that can generate summaries of suspicious incidents and ferret out methods hackers use to obscure their intentions.

From Seattle Times

“We’ll work with the school system to try to ferret out how this happened,” Newport News Commonwealth’s Attorney Howard Gwynn said at a news conference.

From Seattle Times

“But despite this, Meta’s directors utterly failed to implement board level oversight and controls to ferret out these heinous activities and to stop them from proliferating on Meta’s platforms.”

From Seattle Times

Related Words

• ascertain
• bring to light
• drive out
• get at
• sniff out
• uncover
• unearth