Definition

1. Noun:

   • The act of looking for something or someone: A careful and systematic attempt to find something.
   • An investigation or inquiry: A process of trying to find information or answers to a question.
   • A computing operation: An operation that checks data to find items matching specific criteria.

2. Verb:

   • To look for: To try to find something or someone by looking carefully or thoroughly.
   • To examine: To look through or explore a place, person, or thing carefully to find something.
   • To seek information: To try to find data or knowledge, often by consulting sources.

Examples of Usage

• Noun:

  • The police conducted a thorough search of the building.
  • His lifelong search for happiness finally ended.
  • The database search returned hundreds of results.

• Verb:

  • I need to search the internet for that recipe.
  • Officers searched the suspect for concealed weapons.
  • She searched her memory but couldn't recall his name.

Advanced Usage

• "in search of": Trying to find or obtain something.

  • They went to the city in search of better opportunities.

• "search me!": (Informal) Used to say you do not know the answer to a question.

  • "Where are my keys?" – "Search me! I haven't seen them."

Variants and Related Words

• Searcher (n): A person who searches.

  • The searchers combed the forest for the lost hiker.

• Searchable (adj): Able to be searched, especially electronically.

  • The new archive is fully searchable by date and keyword.

• Searching (adj): Thorough and intense; keenly observant.

  • He gave me a searching look, as if trying to read my thoughts.

Synonyms

• Look for: To try to find.
• Seek: To attempt to find or obtain.
• Explore: To investigate or examine thoroughly.
• Examine: To inspect closely.

Related Phrasal Verbs

• Search for: To try to find something.

  • He spent hours searching for the missing document.

• Search through: To look carefully among a collection of things.

  • She had to search through all her old files to find the letter.

• Search out: To find something after a deliberate effort.

  • It was his mission to search out the truth.

Related Idioms

• Search high and low: To look for something everywhere.

  • I've searched high and low for my passport.

• A needle in a haystack search: A search for something extremely difficult to find.

  • Finding the original document in that archive is like a needle in a haystack search.

Noun

1. boarding and inspecting a ship on the high seas
   • right of search
2. the examination of alternative hypotheses
   • his search for a move that would avoid checkmate was unsuccessful
3. 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
4. an investigation seeking answers
   • a thorough search of the ledgers revealed nothing
   • the outcome justified the search
5. the activity of looking thoroughly in order to find something or someone

Verb

1. subject to a search
   • The police searched the suspect
   • We searched the whole house for the missing keys
2. inquire into
   • the students had to research the history of the Second World War for their history project
   • He searched for information on his relatives on the web
   • Scientists are exploring the nature of consciousness
3. search or seek
   • We looked all day and finally found the child in the forest
   • Look elsewhere for the perfect gift!
4. try to locate or discover, or try to establish the existence of
   • The police are searching for clues
   • They are searching for the missing man in the entire county