search definition

1. the activity of looking thoroughly in order to find something or someone
2. an investigation seeking answers
• examples: a thorough search of the ledgers revealed nothing
• examples: the outcome justified the search
3. an operation that determines whether one or more of a set of items has a specified property
• examples: they wrote a program to do a table lookup
4. the examination of alternative hypotheses
• examples: his search for a move that would avoid checkmate was unsuccessful
5. boarding and inspecting a ship on the high seas
• examples: right of search
6. try to locate or discover, or try to establish the existence of
• examples: The police are searching for clues
• examples: They are searching for the missing man in the entire county
7. search or seek
• examples: We looked all day and finally found the child in the forest
• examples: Look elsewhere for the perfect gift!
8. subject to a search
• examples: The police searched the suspect
• examples: We searched the whole house for the missing keys