suspect

[ verb suh-spekt; noun suhs-pekt; adjective suhs-pekt, suh-spekt ]

verb (used with object)

1. to believe to be guilty, false, counterfeit, undesirable, defective, bad, etc., with little or no proof:

   to suspect a person of murder.

2. to doubt or mistrust:

   I suspect his motives.

3. to believe to be the case or to be likely or probable; surmise:

   I suspect his knowledge did not amount to much.

   Synonyms: suppose, conjecture, guess

4. to have some hint or foreknowledge of:

   I think she suspected the surprise.

verb (used without object)

1. to believe something, especially something evil or wrong, to be the case; have suspicion.

noun

1. a person who is suspected, especially one suspected of a crime, offense, or the like.
2. an animal or thing that is suspected to be the cause of something bad: The cause of the disease was not confirmed, but the suspect was an insect.

   Investigators focused on faulty wiring as a suspect in the house fire.

   The cause of the disease was not confirmed, but the suspect was an insect.

adjective

1. suspected; open to or under suspicion.

suspect

verb

1. tr to believe guilty of a specified offence without proof
2. tr to think false, questionable, etc

   she suspected his sincerity

3. tr; may take a clause as object to surmise to be the case; think probable

   to suspect fraud

4. intr to have suspicion

noun

1. a person who is under suspicion

adjective

1. causing or open to suspicion

Derived Forms

• susˈpecter, noun
• ˈsuspectless, adjective

Other Words From

• sus·pect·i·ble adjective
• non·sus·pect noun adjective
• pre·sus·pect verb (used with object)
• un·sus·pect·ing adjective
• un·sus·pect·ing·ly adverb

Word History and Origins

Origin of suspect¹

First recorded in 1250–1300; Middle English (adjective) from Latin suspectus, past participle of suspicere “to look up, look and see, regard with mistrust,” equivalent to su- “under, below, beneath” + -spicere, combining form of specere “to see, observe, keep an eye on, take into consideration”; (verb) partly from the adjective, partly from Middle French suspecter “to hold suspect,” or directly from Latin suspectāre, frequentative of suspicere; su-

Word History and Origins

Origin of suspect¹

C14: from Latin suspicere to mistrust, from sub- + specere to look

Idioms and Phrases

Idioms

1. the usual suspects, the people, animals, or things that are commonly associated with a particular activity, situation, etc. (often used facetiously):

   We visited a family farm with sheep and bunnies and roosters and goats—the usual suspects!

Example Sentences

By the logic of this book, a lot of music made without “real” instruments — a lot of the music in the world right now, and some of the best — may start to look suspect.

From Washington Post

The suspect “was actually caught in the act,” prosecutor Arielle Hinton said this week during Cline’s first court hearing in the case in Montgomery County District Court.

From Washington Post

On one occasion, the father reported a credit card stolen and said he suspected his son had taken it, police said.

From Washington Post

Parker Pearson suspects other, still-undiscovered stone circles in western Wales contributed to the construction of Stonehenge and Bluestonehenge.

From Science News

After the shooting, a suspect was seen leaving the area in a silver SUV, possibly a Nissan Rogue.

From Washington Post

A fourth suspect, a 26-year-old woman named Hayat Boumeddiene, remains at large.

From The Daily Beast

The third suspect, an 18-year-old named Hamyd Mourad, who turned himself in, is part of the same extended family.

From The Daily Beast

The big slug happened to hit the suspect in the street, passing through his arm and then striking Police Officer Andrew Dossi.

From The Daily Beast

I suspect [Teresa] will get money sent in to her, so she can shop at the commissary.

From The Daily Beast

In such beer polls, I suspect a lot of voters would pick Huckabee.

From The Daily Beast

About this time the famous Philippine painter, Juan Luna (vide p. 195), was released after six monthsʼ imprisonment as a suspect.

From Project Gutenberg

In this case, I suspect, there was co-operant a strongly marked childish characteristic, the love of producing an effect.

From Project Gutenberg

I suspect, from the evident care taken of it, that its product is considerably relied on for food.

From Project Gutenberg

You see it for yourself, no Englishman ever shall suspect me, when we shall converse, of being other than a Briton.

From Project Gutenberg

Only then did I own that by hook or by crook—and mostly by crook, I was forced to suspect—they had purposely given me the slip.

From Project Gutenberg

Related Words

• assume
• believe
• consider
• doubt
• presume
• speculate
• think
• wonder

About This Word

What does sus mean?

Sus is a shortening of suspicious or suspect. In slang, it has the sense of “questionable” or “shady.”

Where does sus come from?

In England and Wales, sus appears in sus law, a name for a stop-and-search law that allowed the police to arrest suspected persons if they appear in violation of the Vagrancy Act of 1824.

The British shortening dates back to the 1950s, with earlier abbreviations of sus for suspicion in other contexts reaching into the 1930s (and related to suss out). Black and ethnic minority groups felt especially targeted by sus laws in the 1970s–80s and ran a successful campaign called Scrap Sus. The law was indeed scrapped in 1981.

Across the pond, sus is short of suspicious, extended to people’s behavior, beliefs, or other things deemed “shady” or “sketchy” in some way. Perhaps a shortening independent from the British English slang, sus spreads online in Black and internet slang in the early 2000s, entered on Urban Dictionary as early as 2003.

How is sus used in real life?

In the UK, expect to encounter sus in the context of historic sus laws, often discussed in terms of racial inequalities in policing.

I need to remind my former @metpoliceuk senior officers that indiscriminate stop & searches without reasonable grounds through the #SusLaw in #OperationSwamp was a key factor behind the #BrixtonRiots. They need to refresh their memory of the #ScarmanReport. #InstitutionalAmnesia pic.twitter.com/WlvenyYn8L

— Leroy Logan MBE (@LeroyLogan999) November 12, 2018

On the internet and in Black slang, sus commonly calls out some behavior, action, person, or thing as questionable or objectionable. In this way, sus has come to mean “bad” more generally.

Sus has spread into more mainstream slang, notably appropriated by Tesla’s Elon Musk in a June 2018 tweet.

Looks so sus when we paint cars red pic.twitter.com/SIO2nInjhJ

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 23, 2018

Note

This content is not meant to be a formal definition of this term. Rather, it is an informal summary that seeks to provide supplemental information and context important to know or keep in mind about the term’s history, meaning, and usage.