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Added 9 October 2026

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/sɜːt͡ʃ/ noun

In Latin: scrūtinium Wiktionary

noun Definition from WordNet 3.1, Princeton University. Pronunciation from Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org. More about search at Wordnik → Where our words come from →

The activity of looking thoroughly in order to find something or someone.
An investigation seeking answers.
a thorough search of the ledgers revealed nothing
An operation that determines whether one or more of a set of items has a specified property.
they wrote a program to do a table lookup

verb

Try to locate or discover, or try to establish the existence of.
The police are searching for clues
Search or seek.
We looked all day and finally found the child in the forest
Inquire into.
the students had to research the history of the Second World War for their history project

Origin

Inherited from Middle English serchen, borrowed from Anglo-Norman sercher, Old French cerchier, from Late Latin circō, ,circāre (“to circle; go around; search for”), from circus. Unrelated to German suchen, which is cognate with English seek.

From Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org (CC BY-SA)

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