Definition of "beagle"

beagle

/ˈbiːɡəl/

noun
plural beagles
1. A small short-legged smooth-coated scenthound, often tricolored and sometimes used for hunting hares. Its friendly disposition makes it suitable as a family pet.
2. A person who snoops on others; a detective.
  Quotations
  […] whereas burying a body in the wooded area beyond the backyard was the quickest way to make a Nassau County Police Department beagle look good.
  2002, Susan Isaacs, Long Time No See, page 243
3. A bailiff.
4. A small kind of shark.
verb
third-person singular simple present beagles, present participle beagling, simple past and past participle beagled
1. To hunt with beagles.
  Quotations
  […] reading men who beagled for fresh air and exercise, impecunious hunting men who beagled for economy […]
  1933, Charles Pascoe Hawkes, Heydays: a salad of memories and impressions, page 20
2. To search.
  Quotations
  […] Pope clapped his hand to his forehead and beagled like a maniac; he had clean forgotten Thorofare Gap.
  1997, Fletcher Pratt, A Short History of the Civil War: Ordeal by Fire, page 150