Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also teck, tect) a detective.

1886		W. Newton Secrets of Tramp Life Revealed 9: Jack or Teck ... Detective.
1889		Clarkson & Richardson Police! 345: He has an accomplice to warn him of the approach of a ‘tec’.
1892		H. Nisbet Bushranger’s Sweetheart 225: No, not Captain Rainbow, or else I wouldn’t have made you welcome here, Teck Smith.
1893		P.H. Emerson Signor Lippo 25: The nice young gentleman [...] says very jollily, ‘I’m a tect,’ and he marches poor Dukey off to Marlboro’ Street.
1894		J. Tabrar [perf. Marie Lloyd] A Bird in the Hand 🎵 He bought me a sealskin coat, the ‘tecs’ were on his track.
1894		Truth (Sydney) 30 Dec. 6/6: The ’tecs all know him, you see, he’s such a d—d bad character.
1898		E. Pugh ‘The Inevitable Thing’ in Keating Working Class Stories of the 1890s (1971) 117: I’ve seen the inspector, an’ ’e tells me the tecs is bound to find ’er.
1904		Sun. Times (Perth) 10 Jan. 1/1: The hooks were put up to the job to test the boss-tec’s skill.
1909		W.W. Jacobs ‘Self-Help’ in Monkey’s Paw (1962) 232: The ’tec told ’im about a lot o’ murder cases he ’ad been on.
1910		N.Z. Truth 30 Apr. 7/5: The tecs, however, got on to Murray’s game, and arrested him.
1914		S. Lewis Our Mr Wrenn (1936) 73: I’ve ’arf a mind to set the ’tecs on you.
1924		S. Scott Human Side of Crook and Convict Life 271: This type which exists in the old school of crime, and is respected by its natural enemies, the ‘tecs’ because it has an element of sportsmanship.
1928		N.Z. Truth 17 May 6/3: Some of the best tributes to him [i.e. a detective] have come from old lags, who, though they feared the ‘tec’, admired and respected the man.
1933		J. Spenser Limey 239: One of these tecs [...] seemed to be the boss.
1941		V. Davis Phenomena in Crime 67: Lynx-eyed ’tecs would be posted at every barrier.
1951		D. Stivens Jimmy Brockett 243: I called the private tecs.
1959		A. Sillitoe ‘Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner’ Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner (1960) 28: A ’tec who’d never had as much in his pockets as that drainpipe had up its jackses.
1972		P. Fordham Inside the Und. 163: To make one of the young tecs leave the room quick.
1988		J. Healy Grass Arena (1990) 62: They slung us in the back of a squad car with a plain-clothes tec.
2000		Guardian G2 16 May 3: Curmudgeonly ’tec bent on bringing justice to the mean streets of, um, Oxford.

2. (US black) a Tech-9 pistol.

2014		T.I. ‘Oh Yeah’ 🎵 Yeah we could jump ’em and check em by sprayin’ tecs at these fools.
2015		67 ‘Live Corn’ 🎵 I remember nights I was in there with the Tec.